Plastic Doesn’t Just Pollute the Lake. It Stops Boats.
Research with boat owners and users on plastic and old nets caught in propellers.
How plastic stops a boat.
Plastic and old nets
Float in the water, worst when the lake is low.
Entanglement
They wrap around the propeller.
The boat stops
Someone has to stop and free the propeller.
Time lost
7.5 minutes a day, on average, per person.
Money lost
For fishing, tourism, transport and trade.
Asking the people who drive the boats.
The Propeller Project was designed by Ocean Recovery Alliance, NGO2 BambooShoot and Angkor University. From August 2023, Angkor University students surveyed boat owners and users in four communities: Kampong Phluk, Kampong Khleang, Chong Khneas and Mechrey.
The people surveyed include fishers, tour boat drivers and villagers who use boats every day.
What the survey found.
643
Boat owners and users surveyed
98%
Meet plastic or old nets when travelling by boat
96%
Say it is worst in the low-water season
70 h
Labour lost each day by the people surveyed, together
Source: Ocean Recovery Alliance, Propeller Project (98.13% and 95.80%, rounded). Survey by Angkor University students with Ocean Recovery Alliance and NGO2 BambooShoot. The full report is not published yet.
It happened to Sophal too.
Sophal Sea, BambooShoot's founder, remembers boat trips to Prek Toal where the propeller got caught in plastic. On one trip with his family, the boat had to be pushed to shore to be fixed. That is when he noticed plastic hanging in the trees.
What the survey measures, boat drivers on the lake live every day.
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