Activists pluck plastic dumped into oceans on mass cleanup day

PARIS - Thousands of volunteers wielding nets and bin bags scoured coasts, parks and riverbanks across the globe on Saturday, in a litter-picking drive highlighting the vast quantity of trash dumped worldwide, a day after mass international climate protests.

Campaigners took part in World Cleanup Day from Manila to the Mediterranean, as hundreds of thousands of people across the world participated in demonstrations and activities calling for urgent action on the environment.

Young people have been at the forefront of the movement, with masses of children skipping school on Friday for a global climate strike, which teen activist Greta Thunberg said was "only the beginning".

Nearly four million people filled city streets around the world on Friday, organizers said, in what was billed as the biggest ever protest against the threat posed to the planet by rising temperatures.

It kicked off a week of climate action called for by Thunberg, who was among several hundred young activists attending a climate summit at the United Nations on Saturday.

The annual World Cleanup Day, held on Saturday this year, is an initiative that got millions into the streets and cleaning up litter across the globe since it began just over a decade ago.

In France, volunteers posted images of their trash hauls on social media - heaps of assorted waste, soft drink cans and plastic containers.

A climate protest on the streets of Paris attracted some 15,000 people, according to a tally by independent consultancy Occurrence, but the rally was marred by clashes between security forces and a relatively small number of troublemakers.

'For us to help'

While the types of trash collected varied, the most common material in the bin bags across the planet was plastic, amid surging concerns over the environmental costs of single-use items and microplastics in world waterways.

In the Philippine capital, nearly 10,000 people swept across a long stretch of beach on heavily polluted Manila Bay, clutching sacks they filled with rubbish.

"It's for us to help the environment. Especially here in Manila, there's a lot of garbage," Mae Angela Areglado, a 20-year-old student said as she pitched in with the cleanup - held right next to the city's huge Baseco slum.

" (Plastic is) affecting the marine life because they think that it is food," she added.

In the Pacific island nation of Fiji, which is among the countries worst affected by sea level rises and has become a vocal advocate for global climate action, people scoured palm-fringed beaches west of the capital Suva, heaving discarded car tires and engine parts from the coast.

On Australia's Bondi Beach, activists sifted through the sand, carting off bits of plastic and cigarette butts.

In Vietnam's capital Hanoi, around 1,400 volunteers went searching for litter under the scorching sun.

"Although our actions are very small - like cleaning trash from the sidewalk - it could spread a meaningful message," 18-year-old Hoang Thi Hoan said, as motorists zipped by on a busy street.

Agencies