Not fabulous, not Bali: the dirtiest island in the Maldives

What does an island where there is not a single piece of free land, with tons of garbage produced daily by a million tourists who come here every year? Throws them on another island, of course.

The delightful Maldives Islands, located in the Indian Ocean southwest of the southern tip of Hindustan, are famous all over the world for their wonderful sandy beaches and turquoise-blue water. Few people know about the dirty side of this beauty. Just a few miles west of the capital of the Maldives and one of the most populated islands on the planet Male is the island of Tilafushi, which has a municipal landfill.

Jamie Cowan

Tilafushi has not always been a dump island. In fact, Tilafushi is not even an island. Twenty-five years ago it was a pristine lagoon. But in December 1991, the authorities decided to arrange a landfill in the lagoon to cope with the growing problem of recycling garbage produced by the tourism industry.

Fizan/Wikimedia

A month later, garbage began to be brought here. Huge pits were dug in the sand, and the garbage arriving from Male and from other inhabited islands was put into pits, which were then sprinkled with a layer of construction debris and leveled with white sand.

Hani Amir/Flickr

The area of Tilafushi grew, and the authorities began to lease land for various industries, including the production of boats, cement packaging, methane packaging and large warehouses.

Hani Amir/Flickr

Now Tilafushi has more than thirty factories, a mosque and about 150 migrants from Bangladesh who dig through 330 tons of garbage scattered around the island and arriving every day. So much waste is brought here that the island grows per square meter per day.

Dying Regime/Flickr

Some garbage is now floating in the ocean, and it is washed up on the shores of Male. It pollutes many scuba diving spots in the area. Environmentalists also criticize impatient boaters who throw garbage directly into the lagoon, because the unloading procedure can take up to seven hours.

Dying Regime/Flickr

Garbage has become such a serious problem that in 2011 the authorities even imposed a ban on the disposal of garbage on Tilafushi. Now part of the waste is exported to India for recycling in order to reuse materials.