The National Plan of Action on Marine Litter forwards Strategy 10 or Strengthening Local Actions. This strategy forwards the formulation of city and community scale action plans to substantially strengthen local technical capacities and development of marine-litter focus interventions. From the city plan, the pilot project titled “Formulating Ormoc City Policy on Marine Litter Reduction and Solid Waste Management: An Action-based, Experience-driven and Community-led Approach” was developed.

The pilot project investigated four levels of localization aspects – process, pre-conditions, approaches, and results. Process looked on the technical/procedural aspects of waste characterization (baselining), and the actors involved in the data capture, planning, and project development. Preconditions discussed the policy and governance landscape, taking on the existing mechanisms placed by the City Solid Waste Management Plan 2019-2028 and 3R projects, in pursuance of RA 9003.

In a pragmatic approach, the city looked on marine litter reduction projects from the following thematic area points – social and economic benefits, behavioral change, technical planning, data management, and institutional set-up. Its actionable and valuable results, in terms of impact to people (income and behavior), waste management (extension of WACS to exit points, dynamic WACS), natural systems (river and coast), and governance (multi-level, empowered, and extended).

In general, the city will put systems in place, with lens and emphasis on marine litter reduction, to further deliver solid waste management targets on solid waste diversion, 84%, and efficiency and collection coverage, 100%, both by 2028.