The most shocking is Thilafushi island, where there is a real mountain of trash. But you can also find plastic bottles all over the other islands. We organised several trash cleanups with Maldivians kids. In just 10 minutes, you can gather a stack of bottles that goes up to your waist! Thilafushi presented a great opportunity to make bikinis and other clothes out of plastic.



Of course, there’s also the visual and sexy side to the campaign, which is how people came to hear about it. But I didn’t do this to criticise recycling policies in the Maldives. A lot of the trash is due to the presence of tourists [Editor’s Note: According to environmental defence organizations, about 600,000 tourists visit the Maldives per year, and each person generates about 3.5 tons of waste per day.] I could have gone to any open-air dump in the world and taken the same photos.





Alison Teal organised trash cleanup drives with kids on several of the Maldives’ islands.







The 2012 coup’s effect on trash management





Alison Teal dressed in plastic that washed up on the beach. Photo from “Alison’s Adventure” by Mark Tipple.

People who say this would do better to look for a solution to this growing mountain of trash. All I’m trying to do is trying to alert people to the consequences of small actions like throwing a plastic bottle into the sea. I intend to return to the Maldives to continue this work.

The Thilafushi open-air dump exists since 1992. Most of the Maldives’ trash ends up there. The 40-kilometre square island is home to numerous industries, such as boat factories. According to several experts, these activities generate on average 300 tonnes of trash per day.To try to fight this pollution, an agreement was signed in 2011 between Maldives’ authorities and an Indian waste management company. However, when the president Mohamed Nasheed was ousted by a coup in February 2012, this agreement went into limbo. It was finally annulled last week, after pressure from Thilafushi officials . No incinerator has been built, and most of the trash keeps getting burned in the open air, which creates toxic fumes.Yet not everyone is pleased with Teal’s campaign. In the capital Malé, some politicians who are close to the current president call Teal’s campaign “an attempt to ruin the country’s tourism industry”. Teal responds: