Used bottles end up in the Mediterranean, or on its beaches, including this one in Tabarka, on the country's north-west coast.
Date oases in the southern city of Tozeur used to have three layers of agriculture: vegetable crops close to the soil, citrus trees in the understory, and date palms towering over the rest. With the advent of monoculture for Diglet Nour dates, the palm groves are now choked with rubbish.
As Tunisia struggles to contain its own waste, a sophisticated network of corrupt officials and bad actors have brought hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste to the country's landfills.
Single-use plastic bags blow across an empty lot on the outskirts of Gabbes, in southern Tunisia. Tunisia has a robust plastics lobby that has kept the country from banning single-use items.
A plastic feed sack in the Sahara outside of Chot el Jerid, Tunisia.
Tunisia lacks the equipment to properly dispose of electronic waste. Here, a pile of old TVs are discarded along with mounds of construction rubble in the Sebkha Ariana wetland just north of Tunis.
Volunteers collect hundreds of kilograms of glass beer bottles from the slope below Carthage's cathedral and archaeological site.
Bottles find their way into remote locations, including the sandstone canyons near Medes, on the Algerian border in southern Tunisia.
Rubbish collectors, or barbecha, are the country's primary engine for recycling consumer-level plastic, as no household recycling programme exists. Government recycling centres pay $0.25 per kilo of plastic while private recycling firms pay $0.43 per kilo. All photos: Erin Clare Brown / The National
Heavy rains in October caused flooding across Tunisia when storm drains, culverts, and runoff channels, such as the one pictured here, filled and overflowed with rubbish.
Volunteers with Tounes Clean-up and Oceanis, two environmental NGOs based in Tunisia, sift through the sand at a beach north of Tunis.
A plastic soda bottle entangled in the roots of an African Tamarix tree in the Sahara east of Nafta, Tunisia.
Used bottles end up in the Mediterranean, or on its beaches, including this one in Tabarka, on the country's north-west coast.
Date oases in the southern city of Tozeur used to have three layers of agriculture: vegetable crops close to the soil, citrus trees in the understory, and date palms towering over the rest. With the advent of monoculture for Diglet Nour dates, the palm groves are now choked with rubbish.
As Tunisia struggles to contain its own waste, a sophisticated network of corrupt officials and bad actors have brought hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste to the country's landfills.
Single-use plastic bags blow across an empty lot on the outskirts of Gabbes, in southern Tunisia. Tunisia has a robust plastics lobby that has kept the country from banning single-use items.
A plastic feed sack in the Sahara outside of Chot el Jerid, Tunisia.
Tunisia lacks the equipment to properly dispose of electronic waste. Here, a pile of old TVs are discarded along with mounds of construction rubble in the Sebkha Ariana wetland just north of Tunis.
Volunteers collect hundreds of kilograms of glass beer bottles from the slope below Carthage's cathedral and archaeological site.
Bottles find their way into remote locations, including the sandstone canyons near Medes, on the Algerian border in southern Tunisia.
Rubbish collectors, or barbecha, are the country's primary engine for recycling consumer-level plastic, as no household recycling programme exists. Government recycling centres pay $0.25 per kilo of plastic while private recycling firms pay $0.43 per kilo. All photos: Erin Clare Brown / The National
Heavy rains in October caused flooding across Tunisia when storm drains, culverts, and runoff channels, such as the one pictured here, filled and overflowed with rubbish.
Volunteers with Tounes Clean-up and Oceanis, two environmental NGOs based in Tunisia, sift through the sand at a beach north of Tunis.
A plastic soda bottle entangled in the roots of an African Tamarix tree in the Sahara east of Nafta, Tunisia.
Used bottles end up in the Mediterranean, or on its beaches, including this one in Tabarka, on the country's north-west coast.
