With lagoons once choked by rubbish, pressure from the appalled community led the government to ban certain single-use products
Prianka Srinivasan
For generations, the people of Erakor village in the Pacific nation of Vanuatu would pass their time swimming in the local lagoon. Ken Andrew, a local chief, remembers diving in its depths when he was a child, chasing the fish that spawned in its turquoise waters.
That was decades ago. Now 52, Andrew has noticed a more pernicious entity invading the lagoon: plastic. “The plastic would form a small island inside the lagoon, it was so thick,” Andrew says. “We used fishing nets to pull some of the trash out, but we didn’t know how to get rid of it all. We couldn’t conquer it, there was just too much.”
While residents were struggling to empty Vanuatu’s waters of plastic, the country’s politicians were considering another solution. Could they stop the waste directly at the source?
Small island nations like Vanuatu face a series of unique challenges when it comes to plastic pollution. Many rely on imported goods to sustain their populations, and receive tonnes of plastic packaging every day as a result. Ocean currents pull plastic waste from around the world into Pacific waters, which eventually end up on the shores of its islands….
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