Tila Fushi Island is burning and has been for 30 years. Originally a small lagoon（[地理][水文] 泻湖）, the waste crisis（危机） on the Maldives became so pressing that the government repurposed it as a landfill. Now the island keeps growing, with reclaimed land made of rubbish, discarded（丢弃） junk and mounds（堆） of plastic. The trash island contradicts the Maldives image. Stunning（足以使人晕倒的） beaches, pristine（ 原始的） water, a dream holiday destination. Shahin Ali is a well-known environmental activist（积极分子） on the Maldives.

  She's fighting the garbage problem. She is mostly recyclable. Our advocacy, I think we need to also do our part and I am a very strong believer that, you know, maybe I will not be able to save the planet or the Maldives or whatever. I'm not out there to save it, but I'm out there at least with hope. Tina and her colleagues work for Parle for the Oceans, a globally（世界上） active NGO. The women are heading north.

  The Maldives consists of over 1,000 small islands, of which 200 are inhabited（居住于）. Travel and transport are not easy here. We are the ocean, right? We take the ocean for granted（授予）, because we get the foot from them, you know, we get everything and we have not seen anything else other than oceans. I mean today is a calm day, so it's beautiful. Some days when we go on these kind of trips, we are stuck in an airport or an island because the sea is so rough and these little boats have to wait.

  It's a challenge and it's very expensive. On Komandu Island, the headmaster greets them. He introduces himself as Ismail. People on the Maldives prefer being on a first-name basis. Shahina is here to help residents（居民） on the island learn to manage their waste. The anti（反对者 a反对的）-plastic activist（积极分子） receives a warm welcome and bouquets（花束） of plastic flowers.

  There's much to do. The first stop is the school. The Maldives is an Islamic country, but girls and boys go to school together. Shahina begins her presentation. It's a new topic for the children. Our waste has changed.

  Now if you go and throw the waste from your home, what do you have in your waste? Plastic bottles. Plastic bottles. Everything you have and you throw it, right? To the beach. Beach is what tourists spend thousands of dollars to come to the Maldives to see the beach.

  And our word for beach is, go to the world. Yeah, last year also we tried many things. Not to throw into the sea. We have done many things, but in this Shahin Komandu najit that has started, now also we are throwing into the sea garbage. So we feel bad. And Shahina teaches across the Maldives.

  The organization Parley believes that the way towards progress is through children in hard-to-reach villages. We don't only do it for the kids. We do this for the kids, and we also do it for the parents. So when the kids go, and at least in the excitement, if they tell the parents. The parents also think, and we bring more the health dangers, the aspect（方面） of health dangers of plastic to the parents. Because we don't need to scare（ 惊吓） the kids about the health dangers of cancers（癌症）.

  Everyone knows each other here. Komandu is a small island. Ismail and the other residents learned what that really means in 2004, when its tsunami（海啸） hit. The second wave was bigger than the first wave. Actually it has reached over the windows of some houses in the eastern side, and it had covered the whole island, except 30 feet radius（半径） spot. So there is no house, no individual person which is not affected by tsunami.

  360 meters long and 240 meters wide, people have been living here for hundreds of years. There are over 1,000 residents on the island. Without a wall, Komandu would have been swallowed（ 吞下） by the ocean years ago. It's just one meter above sea level, and the ocean is rising. Komandu isn't poor. The men often spend weeks at sea fishing for tuna, while the women typically work at home.

  Ismail grew up here. He studied in India, worked in Mali, and came back a few years ago. When the school day's over, he goes fishing with his two-year-old son. We don't have social problems. Our kids will see very friendly people, families and neighbors, and they have a good school to study. So we don't have any issues.

  We are very happy in our life. But there are ecological（ 生态的） issues, notably（显著地） the garbage problem. The islanders（岛上居民） dump（倾卸） all their trash into the sea, and the waste drain（耗竭） also ends up in the water. Ismail says this is the way it's always been done. But he doesn't seem too comfortable with that. The dumped plastic doesn't simply disappear.

  It stays intact（完整无缺的）, and in the best case, floats（漂浮） back to shore（滨）. The fish aren't biting today. If you do catch one, you can see what else happens with the plastic refuse. The next morning, Shahinah and her team head off to a neighboring island. The students will follow later. No one lives here.

  We want to do a clean-up, and explain to the children that when you throw it, it just doesn't go away. If the bottles have a cap or plastic bags, it floats back, or it gets eaten by an animal, so that they can link to the program to do the right thing. We take them snorkeling because we want them to understand what we are losing. I think it's coming from a different angle（角度） and telling them that we are losing so much of biodiversity（生物多样性） is a better way of making them understand. It's a big day for the students. The island is just a few hundred meters away, but few have been here before.