Thilafushi
Island Summary
Belongs to	Kaafu Atoll Kaafu Atoll Kaafu Atoll is an administrative division of the Maldives. It consists of Kaashidhoo Island, Gahaafaru Atoll, and Malé Atoll...
Location	4°11′N 73°26′E
Population	~1000
Length	3.5 km
Width	0.2 km
Distance from Malé Malé Malé , is the capital and most populous city in the Republic of Maldives. It is located at the southern edge of North Malé Atoll . It is also one of the Administrative divisions of the Maldives. Traditionally it was the King's Island, from where the ancient Maldive Royal dynasties ruled and where...	6.85 km approx
Administrative Information
Managed by	Thilafushi Corporation Limited
Island office phone	N/A
Island office fax	+960 6640065

Thilafushi (Dhivehi

Dhivehi language

Maldivian is an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by about 350,000 people in the Maldives where it is the national language. It is also the first language of nearly 10,000 people in the island of Minicoy in the Union territory of Lakshadweep, India where the Mahl dialect of the Maldivian...

: ތިލަފުށި) is an artificial island

Artificial island

An artificial island or man-made island is an island or archipelago that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means...

 created as a municipal landfill

Landfill

A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...

 situated to the west of Malé

Malé

Malé , is the capital and most populous city in the Republic of Maldives. It is located at the southern edge of North Malé Atoll . It is also one of the Administrative divisions of the Maldives. Traditionally it was the King's Island, from where the ancient Maldive Royal dynasties ruled and where...

, and is located between Kaafu Atoll

Kaafu Atoll

Kaafu Atoll is an administrative division of the Maldives. It consists of Kaashidhoo Island, Gahaafaru Atoll, and Malé Atoll...

's Giraavaru

Giraavaru (Kaafu Atoll)

Giraavaru is an island of Malé Atoll nowadays hosting a turist resort. It is located on the southwestern fringe of the lagoon of North Malé Atoll...

 and Gulhifalhu of the Maldives

Maldives

The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...

. It is geographically part of the Vaadhoo channel

Channel (geography)

In physical geography, a channel is the physical confine of a river, slough or ocean strait consisting of a bed and banks.A channel is also the natural or human-made deeper course through a reef, sand bar, bay, or any shallow body of water...

.

History

Thilafushi originally was as a lagoon

Lagoon

A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...

 called ‘Thilafalhu’ with a length of 7 km and a width of 200 metres at the shallowest regions. It came into existence following a series of discussions and efforts to resolve Malé

Malé

Malé , is the capital and most populous city in the Republic of Maldives. It is located at the southern edge of North Malé Atoll . It is also one of the Administrative divisions of the Maldives. Traditionally it was the King's Island, from where the ancient Maldive Royal dynasties ruled and where...

’s irrepressible garbage predicament during the early 1990s. The decision to reclaim Thilafalhu as a landfill was made on December 5, 1991.

Thilafushi received its first load of garbage from Malé on the January 7, 1992. Operations started with just 1 landing craft

Landing craft

Landing craft are boats and seagoing vessels used to convey a landing force from the sea to the shore during an amphibious assault. Most renowned are those used to storm the beaches of Normandy, the Mediterranean, and many Pacific islands during WWII...

, 4 heavyload truck

Truck

A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...

s, 2 excavator

Excavator

Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, stick, bucket and cab on a rotating platform . The house sits atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels. A cable-operated excavator uses winches and steel ropes to accomplish the movements. They are a natural progression from the...

s and a single wheel loader.

During its early years of waste disposal operations, pits (also known as cells) with a volume of 37,500 ft³ (1060 m³) were dug, after which the sand obtained from the excavation was used to construct walled enclosures around the internal perimeter of the cells. Waste

Waste

Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...

 received from Malé was deposited into the midst of the pit, which was topped off with a layer of construction debris and then uniformly levelled with white sand

Coral sand

Coral sand is sand of particles originating in tropical and sub-tropical marine environments from bioerosion of limestone skeletal material of marine organisms. One example of this process is that of parrot fishes which bite off pieces of coral, digest the living tissue, and excrete the inorganic...

. Initially there was no segregation of the waste since it had to be disposed immediately due to mass accumulation.

Industrialization

Today Thilafushi has a landmass

Landmass

A landmass is a contiguous area of land surrounded by ocean. Although it may be most often written as one word to distinguish it from the usage "land mass"—the measure of land area—it is also used as two words.Landmasses include:*supercontinents...

 of more than 4.6 million ft² (0.43 km²). The speedy terrestrial growth of Thilafushi was observed by the Government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

, and in November 1997, it was decided that land was to be leased to entrepreneurs interested in acquiring land for industrial

Industry

Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...

 purposes. Initially there were just 22 lease holders. Within the past 10 years, this number has doubled to 54 resulting in more than 1.2 million square feet (0.11 km² or 27.5 acres) of land being used currently, which generates an excess of 14 million Rufiyaa (about USD1,000,000.00) per annum. Soon after, an area of 0.2 km² (known as Thilafushi-2) was reclaimed using white sand as the filling material to provide terra firma for the more heavy industries.

The current (major) industrial activities in the island are boat manufacturing

Boat building

Boat building, one of the oldest branches of engineering, is concerned with constructing the hulls of boats and, for sailboats, the masts, spars and rigging.-Parts:* Bow - the front and generally sharp end of the hull...

, cement

Cement

In the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance that sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term opus caementicium to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed...

 packing, methane

Methane

Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...

 gas bottling and various large scale warehousing

Warehouse

A warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...

.

Impact

Thilafushi has reduced waste on Malé. However, some of the waste, such as asbestos, is harmful, and there is a risk of toxic heavy metals such as mercury, lead, and cadmium leaching out into the sea, damaging marine ecology.