About 5 p.m. every evening, the putrid smell of burning plastic penetrates the lungs of villagers in the community of Kampot in southern Cambodia.
With no system of trash collection in Cambodia’s rural areas, there’s no way to dispose of the voluminous amounts of plastic bottles and containers used by rural Cambodians, other than burning it.
“There’s a terrible trash problem in Southeast Asia. It washes up on the shores; it’s a plastic epidemic,” said Rachel Riggio of Rollins, who has spent the past six years working to bring basic resources to children in Cambodia.
