Negombo Lagoon, where waves meet waste, is caught in a silent crisis
Standing at the edge of the Negombo Lagoon, I was hit with a mix of beauty and heartbreak. This lagoon should’ve been paradise—a beautiful spot with fishermen’s boats dotting the horizon, where the ocean and sky meet. But up close, it was something else entirely. Garbage lined the shores, tangled fishing nets snagged plastic bags, and empty bottles floated by like ghosts. Globally, about 80% of wastewater isn’t treated, just sent straight into oceans, rivers, and lagoons—basically turning our waters into liquid dumpsters. Here in Sri Lanka, 1.5 million tons of plastic waste piles up each year. Where does it all go? Well, places like the Negombo Lagoon catch a good chunk of it. And it’s a painful cycle: hotels pollute, fish disappear, fishermen suffer, tourists complain, and the economy takes a hit. It’s easy to dismiss pollution as someone else’s problem, but standing by that lagoon, it felt personal. Every piece of trash, every slick of oil on the water, was like a jab to t...