A deluge of plastic waste washed over the island of Batasan in Tubigon, Bohol in the aftermath of the country's deadliest typhoon in December. The piles of debris are a grim reminder of the country's chronic marine trash problem.

Baltazar Mejares, a 52-year-old father of four, scampered in the dark with his family to reach higher ground as the sea swelled to four metres high on the night of 16 December 2021, when the year’s deadliest typhoon hammered Batasan Island in Tubigon, Bohol in the Philippines where they live.

Tethered together with a length of rope, Mejares and his family survived.

That night, Typhoon Rai forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes, killing more than 400 people, injuring over a thousand in the northern coast of Mindanao and the Visayas island group where Batasan Island is found.

On the water, Enrico Cosare shielded himself in a mangrove as Typhoon Rai ravaged the islands.

Cosare, a boatman who ferries passengers from the main province of Bohol to the island, considers the mangroves as the safest place for his boat during stormy weather with the trees as natural barriers against the waves and strong winds.

He surmised that the waste may come from more populous areas when he saw a bank passbook from the province of Cebu, caught in the mangroves.

Read the full article about plastic waste after typhoon in Phillipines by Sonieta Deguit Labasan and Hannah Alcoseba Fernandez at Eco-Business.