There is a part of a newly finished drainage improvement project near my office where the drain covers are metal grills that allow people a peek of what’s inside, and based on what I see every time I pass by that area, there is a lot of trash, mostly plastic, in those drains.
I never really bothered looking into the drains before, but after last week’s flooding issue, who wouldn’t want to check out the state of the drains that they can easily peek into, right?
There are many reasons why floods occur. The most obvious one is unusually heavy rain, especially if it coincides with the high tide. This is a problem for coastal towns and cities in the Philippines, many of which are located on floodplains, because most of their storm drains empty to the sea or rivers and are usually located at or near sea level.
The worrying thing about sea level is that it is slowly rising, due to global warming and climate change, which compounds the potential of flooding for most coastal towns and cities, and could even render unlivable those communities that are going to be below sea level in a couple of decades.
Anyway, the point is that flood waters have nowhere to go but up in coastal cities, particularly when rains are heavy and the tide is high. There are cases where infrastructure and technology, such as well-designed drainage systems, backed up with catchment basins or reservoirs, can mitigate such risks, but even if we get something like that, a lot of its performance and efficiency still hinges on how well it is maintained.
This is why I have been peeking into drains and disappointed at what I am able to see. Because if I can see trash and plastic waste clogging those that are visible from the street level, I’m pretty sure that the 99 percent of the system that is underground and/or invisible to us are just as bad, or probably in an even worse state of clogness.
Flood waters rise because they have nowhere else to go. Water always seeks its own level, but if it has nowhere to go, it will naturally go up. Those who have unleashed a mega poop that managed to block their toilet know too well how that works and how it can be terrifying as the water rises, but also know how it can be rectified. A drainage system can be designed and built, but if there are clogs at any point, then it becomes only partially useful or depending on the severity of the clogs, could be rendered totally useless. Any clog at any point, from the inlets at the street level, all the way to the outlets at the sea, affects the performance of any multimillion or multibillion peso drainage system.
The trouble with us here in the Philippines is that we are among the top plastic waste polluters in the world, with the worst solid waste management systems and practices. This means that a lot of the massive amounts of plastic waste that we generate doesn’t go to the garbage dump or the landfill, or to recycling or reuse centers, but into our drainage systems. This is because many Filipinos have this mentality where they think that any hole in the street also doubles as a trash bin where they can conveniently deposit their waste. If you come to think of it, those who shoot their trash in the drainage holes are already the ‘nice’ ones, because the really bad ones are those who just flat out litter anywhere and wait for nature or luck to somehow direct their crap to the sewers.
Our regular street sweepers should know better, but we can probably bet that the charity cash-for-work street sweepers / weed pullers / jack of all trades who are asked to do something or anything to ‘earn’ their doleout are the type of people who really don’t think about their job too much, and probably contribute to the trash being out of sight and out of mind as quickly as possible too.
The storm drains and sewers being out of sight and therefore out of mind is the reason why flooding is a regular occurrence in our towns and cities. Our littering fills it with trash, our public officials forget their job to conduct regular maintenance, and when the rains suddenly fall, the drains can’t work properly anymore so the floodwaters rise in our nonporous concrete jungles where water cannot go anywhere else but up.
Take a peek into the nearby storm drains if you can, and if you can somehow see that Ninja Turtles cannot possibly live in storm drains or sewers with so much trash, just be ready to brace yourself when it rains hard because the communal neglect and apathy has ensured that your community is at risk of floods.*
