Student volunteers who set out to clean up Manila's waterfront found themselves being battered by waves of rubbish driven ashore by heavy seas in Manila Bay.

Video footage captured by a student from San Beda University in Manila shows a dense garbage carpet, with plastic bottles and other unidentifiable waste, crashing ashore.

Massive piles of swirling trash are seen rippling and crashing into the Manila Bay breakwater, sending waste into the air.

Environmental activist Matthew Doming shot the footage as his student club, the Bedan Environmental Philosophers Organisation, took part in a clean-up effort at the capital's waterfront.

Mr Doming said the group of volunteers were overwhelmed by the amount of garbage that had accumulated. ( Facebook: Matthew Doming )

Mr Doming told Storyful the clean-up experience was overwhelming because it was the groups' first time witnessing the extent of garbage pollution in the area.

"It was such a horrible scene but instead of being dismayed, they were motivated to serve in line with the mission of our club, despite the discomfort," he said.

Piles of garbage and plastic debris have washed up on roads and side streets in Manila after heavy rains deluged the Philippines capital over the weekend.

Residents have been pitching in to recover lost valuables and salvageable material from the wreckage but it remains a mammoth task in many areas.

The Philippines is the third biggest source of plastic ocean pollution in the world, according to a 2017 report by Greenpeace.