The City Environment and Natural Resources Office prepared some 10,000 mudballs for the 3rd Mudball Run at the city’s baywalk coinciding with the International Coastal Clean-up on September 21, 2019.
Mudball is a low-cost wastewater treatment intended to clean bodies of water such as rivers, lakes, ponds and oceans. EM mudballs are made of dried mud into which EM solution and rice bran, locally known as “darak”, has been kneaded.
EM-1 (Effective Microorganisms-1) is a microbial inoculant that encourages the growth of beneficial microbes indigenous to the environment. As these beneficial microbes grow in numbers, so do their capabilities to bio-remediate water, soil and waste materials. Bioremediation comes from the word bio which means “life” and “remediation”, which means to fix or to restore.
Senior Environmental Management Specialist (SEMS) Mary Ann JoylleMadrinan explained that bioremediation is the use of biological organism, either naturally occurring or deliberately introduced microorganisms, to breakdown environmental pollutants and solve environmental problems such as contaminated water.
The purpose of applying mud balls is to clean up oceans, rivers, lakes and ponds.
Puerto Princesa City held its first mudball run in 2017.
Madrinan further said that prior to the city’s first mudball run, their office applied mudballs for the first time on August 6 until November 2016, in Barangay Matahimik and Baywalk afterwhich they observed positive tangible results.
She said that the foul odor has been reduced, mosquito population was also reduced and in some specific places it was eliminated, and the itchiness of coastal waters eliminated.