‘Rubbish Island’

Maldives ‘Rubbish Island’ is ‘overwhelmed’ by garbage

Boatmen bringing rubbish to Thilafushi are impatient at having to wait up to seven hours to unload

The government of the Maldives has temporarily banned the depositing of rubbish from its hotels onto an island used almost entirely as a garbage dump.

Thilafushi, an artificial island 7km (four miles) from the capital, is nicknamed Rubbish Island.

The accumulation of garbage there has become so acute that it has begun spilling into its lagoon.

An emergency clearing operation has begun to remove “hills of rubbish” mostly collected from luxury hotels.

Rubbish Island is a far cry from the Maldives’ famous turquoise waters and white sands.

Those who have been there describe vast piles of rubbish and perpetual smog and smoke.

The routine is for mainly Bangladeshi workers to sift through the trash to look for materials their employers can sell.

Waste from the whole country is taken there to the island be buried, burnt or – for some plastic and metal – recycled.

Much of the rubbish comes from the luxury resorts which, reportedly, do not follow the rules on crushing their waste.

The boats that bring rubbish to Thilafushi have recently started dumping it into the lagoon, many boatmen impatient at having to wait up to seven hours to unload it.

Source: BBC News Read more

Maldives

Most of you have no idea where the Maldives are, I would wager. They are a small chain of 1,190 small coral islands in the Indian Ocean, to the southwest of India.

With a population of 238,500, only 199 islands are inhabited and 75 are exclusively for tourist resorts.

The Maldives are one of the most coral-rich regions of the world and the reefs support 75% of the world’s reef fish.

Pristine, like pristine has never been seen before

But as you can see from the story above, it is not all Blue Lagoon country.

Some of the clearest and pristine waters in the world surround this small island enclave and while the natural fauna above is nothing to write home about the underwater world is and makes for some of the best diving on the planet.

Sheraton Maldives Full Moon Resort & Spa

 

The Maldives have become a playground for the rich, resorts are the mainstay of Maldive income with many of the world’s most famous hotel chains being represented; and they all participate in the destruction of an island.