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.
Floating rubbish in Sihanouk, Cambodia 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.
“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.
The view from a home on the wharf 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.
Sorted cans are loaded on to a truck at a recycling plant by the Sihanouk port Peren described witnessing fishing boats coming into the wharf after long trips and dumping months of rubbish straight into the water and families living in the shanty houses on stilts doing the same with rubbish from their homes, the majority of which was often plastic packaging and bottles.
The plastic bags which also make up the dense blanket of rubbish also speak to Cambodia’s issue with consumption of single use plastic.
In urban areas, each person uses an estimated 2,000 plastic bags annually, 10 times more than consumers in China and the EU, and an average of 10m plastic bags are used every day in Phnom Penh alone, according to anti-poverty organization ACRA in 2015.