Where is the island of maldives
The Maldives May Look like a Tropical Paradise, but There's One Island That No One Should Visit
facts first presents the Maldives may
look like a tropical paradise but
there's one island that no one should
visit the Maldives is a popular tourist
and honeymoon destination located
hundreds of miles off the coast of Sri
Lanka
it's an archipelago of beautiful islands
with white sand beaches and sparkling
blue waters while the Maldives appears
to be paradise there is a dark side to
this vacation destination that won't
show up anywhere on their brochures the
Maldives may look like a tropical
paradise but there's one island that no
one should visit Philip ushi started out
as a sleepy lagoon in the Indian Ocean
it's located a few miles from the
region's capital of Mali as more and
more visitors have flocked to the
Maldives Fela Fuji is changed a lot it's
also a horrifying reminder of what
progress can do to a tropical paradise
while people still love to visit the
five-star resorts of Mali and the
surrounding islands draw in tourists the
Lefou she is a time bomb that is slowly
seeping poison into the surrounding
waters how did it gorgeous place like
this take such a dark turn the Maldives
has been home to many fishermen and
their families for years while there if
the people lived off marine life in the
60s there was talk about developing the
Maldives as a holiday destination but
the United Nations shot the idea down in
the 70s it was approved though and the
first resort opened its doors in 1972 it
wasn't long before tourism became the
islands primary source of income and
today there are over a hundred and
thirty resorts scattered across the
Maldives 200 islands that are inhabited
in 2017 alone over 1.4 million people
vacationed on the islands one place you
won't see on tourist brochures though is
the Lefou XI in the 1990s Villa Fucci
was a gorgeous Lagoon just like those
that are homes to the other beautiful
resorts in the Maldives it's an
artificial island only 2 miles long and
less than a quarter mile across in the
90s tourism in the Maldives had been
flourishing already for about 20 years
with all the people visiting the island
a steady flow of
came with them the locals struggled to
deal with all of that garbage
when Molly became one of the most
overcrowded cities in the world they had
no idea what to do with the islands
waste with the way situation getting
worse and worse
a bizarre solution was proposed
officials thought it would be a good
idea to use the Lefou sheet as a large
landfill site in December of 1991 the
plan was approved the first boatload of
waste was taken to the island a month
later in the beginning disposing of the
trash on the island was pretty simple
they used one landing craft one wheel
loader two excavators a few trucks and
some workers it was up to the workers to
process the trash that arrived on the
island they had to create pits that
could hold thirty seven thousand five
hundred cubic feet of waste in the
beginning the trash coming from Molly
went right into the pits without being
sorted or segregated when these dumping
grounds got too full they were topped
with debris from local construction and
then leveled off with sand that's caused
the island to grow in just five years
the island became a dump for all of the
Maldives Islands and this was when
officials realized they had a unique
opportunity on their hands they decided
to lease the expanding land to
entrepreneurs for industrial ventures in
the beginning twenty two companies
signed on with all of these plans in the
works waste still continue to arrive on
the Lefou she soon the island started
being called rubbish island and it kept
growing over two decades over 330 tons
of trash was shipped there each day
every 24 hours the layer of garbage
increased in size by a square metre what
was going on at Dilma foo she was far
different than what was happening on the
other Maldive islands it wasn't long
before more and more companies wanted to
lease land on the island over 54
companies were on the island and over
1.2 million feet of the island was
dedicated to industrial activities by
this time the island wasn't just a dump
site it was also a hub for boat
manufacturing warehousing cement packing
and methane bottling although the
industry on the island was great
economically
it was turning the island into an
environmental disaster according to
experts the average visitor to the
Maldives produces about 3.5 kilograms of
garbage each day it's believed that
tourists produce five times more trash
than the residents who are living there
and that means a lot of trash is making
its way to the Lefou she the experts say
that it's not just plastic water bottles
and paper garbage making its way to the
island there's also toxic trash such as
used batteries asbestos and other
hazardous wastes being brought there
each and every day the trash and toxic
waste being brought to the Lefou she
isn't just destroying the island it's
polluting the water and noxious fumes
are being spread through the air and
things got worse in 2011 when incoming
freighters got tired of the long waits
to dump their loads and they started
offloading their garbage directly into
the ocean that caused the government to
put a ban on any trash at all going to
the island today the ban is still in
place and garbage is now shipped across
the ocean to India what happened to this
once beautiful island is devastating
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