Diver Rich Horner has captured video of himself swimming through water densely strewn with plastic waste and yellowing food wrappers, with the occasional tropical fish darting around.
The footage was shot at a dive site called Manta Point, a cleaning station for the large rays on the island of Nusa Penida, about 20km from the popular Indonesian holiday island of Bali.
Read/see also: 'Mountains and mountains of plastic': life on Cambodia's polluted coast
Photographs from Sihanouk in the country’s south west reveal locals living amid a staggering tide of plastic pollution.
Looking down into the water that lies beneath the ramshackle houses of Sihanouk, Cambodia, it is hard to imagine that the sea is there at all. Instead, there is dense layer upon layer of plastic waste clogging the water, piling up around poles that support the wooden homes, carpeting the beach.
New images of from Sihanouk, in the country’s south west, depict in horrifying detail the extent of Cambodia’s growing problem of plastic pollution and how the tide of unbiodegradable rubbish has become part of the fabric of the lives of communities living in poverty.
Photographer Niamh Peren said she had been “gobsmacked” at the levels of plastic pollution that littered the waters and wharfs of Sihanouk, but emphasised that these mountains of waste also told another story: one is often neglected in the current global discussion around plastic, where poorer countries are often accused of being the biggest culprits in terms of generating plastic waste.
“There seems to be no empathy for the fact that for the people living in Sihanouk, there isn’t a water filtration system,” said Peren. “Their tap water is so dirty and undrinkable, that to stay alive they have to buy bottled water and then live among the rubbish it creates because there’s nowhere to put it.”
Over the past 15 to 20 years, Cambodia’s water system has improved faster than most of its regional neighbours, though sanitation efforts have mainly been centred in the capital Phnom Penh. However, according to Water.Org, about four million people in Cambodia still lack access to safe water, leaving them with no alternative but to buy endless bottled water, perpetuating the environmentally destructive cycle.
Peren added: “There’s a total blame game that goes on about who generates rubbish and all this plastic but it’s a human story at the end of the day because this plastic waste that all the people here live amongst is unavoidable- they are not about to feed their babies the black muddy liquid that comes out of the taps, it’s poison.”
With no systemised waste collection service in the area, - almost every plastic bottle ends up in the water below, along with most other rubbish. With hundreds of families living in these houses on the water, the daily rubbish build up is enormous. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/mountains-and-mountains-of-plastic-life-on-cambodias-polluted-coast
The footage was shot at a dive site called Manta Point, a cleaning station for the large rays on the island of Nusa Penida, about 20km from the popular Indonesian holiday island of Bali.
Read/see also: 'Mountains and mountains of plastic': life on Cambodia's polluted coast
Photographs from Sihanouk in the country’s south west reveal locals living amid a staggering tide of plastic pollution.
Looking down into the water that lies beneath the ramshackle houses of Sihanouk, Cambodia, it is hard to imagine that the sea is there at all. Instead, there is dense layer upon layer of plastic waste clogging the water, piling up around poles that support the wooden homes, carpeting the beach.
New images of from Sihanouk, in the country’s south west, depict in horrifying detail the extent of Cambodia’s growing problem of plastic pollution and how the tide of unbiodegradable rubbish has become part of the fabric of the lives of communities living in poverty.
Photographer Niamh Peren said she had been “gobsmacked” at the levels of plastic pollution that littered the waters and wharfs of Sihanouk, but emphasised that these mountains of waste also told another story: one is often neglected in the current global discussion around plastic, where poorer countries are often accused of being the biggest culprits in terms of generating plastic waste.
“There seems to be no empathy for the fact that for the people living in Sihanouk, there isn’t a water filtration system,” said Peren. “Their tap water is so dirty and undrinkable, that to stay alive they have to buy bottled water and then live among the rubbish it creates because there’s nowhere to put it.”
Over the past 15 to 20 years, Cambodia’s water system has improved faster than most of its regional neighbours, though sanitation efforts have mainly been centred in the capital Phnom Penh. However, according to Water.Org, about four million people in Cambodia still lack access to safe water, leaving them with no alternative but to buy endless bottled water, perpetuating the environmentally destructive cycle.
Peren added: “There’s a total blame game that goes on about who generates rubbish and all this plastic but it’s a human story at the end of the day because this plastic waste that all the people here live amongst is unavoidable- they are not about to feed their babies the black muddy liquid that comes out of the taps, it’s poison.”
With no systemised waste collection service in the area, - almost every plastic bottle ends up in the water below, along with most other rubbish. With hundreds of families living in these houses on the water, the daily rubbish build up is enormous. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/mountains-and-mountains-of-plastic-life-on-cambodias-polluted-coast
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