Learning on the job: Zara recounts the visit to the Maldives Ocean Plastics Alliance (MOPA)

H-Farm Coral Restoration in the Maldives uncovers a hidden problem in paradise
by Zara Hawkins

I was one of 9 female students who just returned from H-Farm’s school trip to the Maldives. We spent an insightful week learning about coral restoration and taking part in a beach cleanup on the island Feridhoo, and discovering how plastic pollution affects the health of corals.

Despite being a popular tourist destination with a reputation of pristine waters and immaculate beaches, the Maldives has the worst microplastic polluted waters in the world. One of the main causes is the nation’s reliance on bottled water, since their tap water isn’t safe to drink. As a result of this bottled water dependance, plastic bottles are the most common piece of plastic to be found in this part of the ocean, ultimately breaking down into harmful microplastics. What’s more, the Maldives lack proper waste disposal. Typically, all waste from across the Maldives is sent to a place called ‘Thilafushi’ AKA “Trash Island”. There, the waste is added to an overflowing pile and either openly burned or pushed into the ocean by storms or heavy winds. During our ferry trip to the airport, we actually passed this trash island, and were able to see its huge pile of waste! These factors ultimately lead to the Maldive’s plastic problem which impacts marine life, including the fish – a large source of income for local fishermen – and coral reefs, which the country relies on for tourism.

During the final day of our week, we had the chance to visit the Maldives Ocean Plastics Alliance (MOPA) recycling facility. Founded in 2020 by Maldivian Environmental Minister, Hon. Thoriq Ibrahim, MOPA set out to tackle this huge problem. They safely dispose of plastic bottles at their facility on the industrial island of Malé from all the atolls. They collect plastic bottles from resorts and the homes of locals, and compress them into efficient and easy to transport bales. These bales are then shipped and sold to larger countries, where these valuable plastics can be recycled into useful materials. MOPA is the only non-governmental facility doing this in the entire nation of the Maldives.

During our visit we were able to see a demonstration of the bottle compressing, and hear from the people behind MOPA, especially Akshay, their General Manager, who showed us around the facility. We even had a go at helping to bale some plastic bottles ourselves! At the end of the visit we also stopped by the offsite facility MOPA keeps their un-baled plastic bottles – an impressively large site. I found this especially insightful because I’ve been involved in the sector of plastic pollution since I co-founded an organization called Hidden Plastic (hiddenplastic.org) in 2020. In fact, it was through a contact made thanks to Hidden Plastic that this visit was initially organized. My previous knowledge of plastic made MOPA’s work seem all the more astonishing. There are very few people doing projects like this in the world, and the scale of plastics that they are able to deal with in such a relatively small facility is beyond impressive! This MOPA trip was a great way to cement what we’d learned in a real-world scenario, and hear from an actual organization combating this crisis on the ground!