‘It is ambitious, but ambition builds the world’: can the Gambia’s bold plan to cut plastic pollution work?

Tourists flock to the country’s dazzling beaches, but its vast, smoking waste sites tell a different story – one that the government is keen to change

Travelling through the Gambia, it is hard to avoid the makeshift dumpsites burning along the roadsides, filling the air with toxic fumes. Outside the tourist areas, beaches and waterways are littered with plastic rubbish.

The Gambia has long acknowledged it has a problem with plastic. For nearly a decade, it has attempted to solve it through legislation, including an anti-littering law in 2007 and a ban on plastic bags in 2015.

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