Plastic in my Paradise

I will always treasure the memories from my 1 week research, location hunt and shoot for child crewmembers of muro ami ships in Palawan's Calamianes Group of Islands in August 2003.
My cameraman, assistant and I stayed at the edge of paradise - Divelink in Uson Island, 5 minutes off Coron town in Busuanga (the group's main/biggest island).
We met and made a lot of good friends there; the biggest bonus was undoubtedly when we explored the many islands of the group - all white sand, ringed with corals and crystal-clear water, mostly deserted, teeming with underwater life and all blessed with clear sunny skies (except when it rained which it did a lot).
I was always in my boardshorts and sandals, my wallet and cellphone in an aquapak and my snorkel set ready everytime we traveled to the islands, in search of our elusive subjects. Everytime we docked to any island (and after checking out for our elusive subjects), I would then dive and swim to my heart's content, until I'm exhausted or until when we have to eat...
Food would always be the fresh catch from the sea (but cooked earlier); and whether it was prepared/cooked by Divelink or Ate Carol, it was always a simple but satisfying feast (I gained weight during that shoot).
We encountered sharks, hostile islanders, sunken ships and a twister. We attended a debut by the beach, ate grilled fresh oysters on our banca and enjoyed unlimited rum cokes and videoke... (too bad all my pictures were destroyed in my camera phone - I would blog about that useless K700i next time). We only found some ex-muro ami crewmembers but none of them were minors; the episode was eventually shelved and we moved on to another topic. Still, I found paradise and was happy enough.
About the only downer in finding paradise was encountering plastic in it. I saw it when I was snorkeling, in the powder-white beaches of secluded islands and in the waterways in and around the islands. And I thought, Palawan is the last frontier of the country (I was hoping plastic would have spared it but then this was a naive thought)...
What triggered these wonderful memories was when I read this enviromental blog on the successful imposition of the tax system of plastic bags in Ireland.
I hope this will be adopted soon too in my country before it's too late for the environment here, especially in paradise.