The Brazilian villagers turning plastic pollution into profit
Maria das Gracas started collecting her plastic bottles after she saw the body of her neighbour floating past her house, carried along with the pollution that helped cause the deadly floods.
She stores them by the front door of her one-story home, which sits on the litter-strewn banks of the Tejipió river in north-east Brazil.
When she has enough she will take them to the local storage skip, where a litter collector will pay her two reals for 50 plastic bottles – about 40 pence. She’s not just doing it for the money. She’s doing it to stop the tide of plastic drowning this community.
Every day Maria and other residents of Coqueiral, a poor neighbourhood in the city of Recife, feel the impact of the world’s plastic binge. It is visible in the waters of the river that
