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Paradise Lost on Maldives' Rubbish Island
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Paradise Lost on Maldives' Rubbish Island

Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed attends a business meeting organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi December 23, 2008. Earlier this month the new president, Mohamed Nasheed, told the Guardian of his radical solution to save his people: put aside some of the Maldives' tourism revenues to buy another homeland. (Reuters/B Mathur/India)

It may be known as a tropical paradise, an archipelago of 1,200 coral islands in the Indian Ocean. But the traditional image of the Maldives hides a dirty secret: the world's biggest rubbish island.

A few miles and a short boat ride from the Maldivian capital, Malé, Thilafushi began life as a reclamation project in 1992. The artificial island was built to solve Malé's refuse problem. But today, with more than 10,000 tourists a week in the Maldives adding their waste, the rubbish island now covers 50 hectares (124 acres).

Posted in Environment, pollution