DENR ramps up Manila Bay rehab

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June 8, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is ramping up the Manila Bay rehabilitation in partnership with the Rotterdam-based environmental group Ocean Cleanup.

With the support of the Philippine embassy in The Hague and the Dutch embassy in Manila, the partnership seeks to complement the government’s upstream regulatory push under the Extended Producer Responsibility Act, which requires companies to recover and recycle the plastic packaging they produce. 

The Ocean Cleanup is known for engineering large-scale river interceptors and ocean cleanup systems. 

The group had deployed 21 interceptors in 10 countries and collected more than 52 million kilos of trash from aquatic environments as of April.

Its technology – solar powered, automated and designed for high-volume capture – is expected to be adapted to the Pasig River’s continuous waste load.

The Manila Bay, including the Pasig River, is part of Ocean Cleanup’s “30 Cities Program.”

Launched last year, the program sees the scaling of the organization’s proven interceptor solutions across 30 key cities in Asia and the US, with the aim of eliminating up to one-third of plastic flowing from the world’s rivers into the ocean before the end of the decade.

In the signing of the five-year memorandum of agreement, Ocean Cleanup founder and CEO Boyan Slat said their research found that around 4,000 tons of plastic enter Manila Bay.

To address the plastic pollution concern, Slat said the group is planning to deploy more than two dozen interceptors in the rivers to catch the plastic before it reaches the ocean.

The group is targeting a 90-percent plastic waste reduction and is set to deploy its first interceptor barrier in Meycauayan, Bulacan.