I first noticed her from our sailboat, kayaking in a quiet rhythm between the shore and a rocky island. After watching her over several days, I approached and photographed her. She calls herself “The Rubbish Lady of Bozburun,” a small town on the southwest coast of Turkey. Each day, she works alone to collect plastic waste the sea returns or is left behind. She first came for sailing and later settled. “I collect what doesn’t belong,” she says, carrying it back in a bag marked “Zero Waste.” For nearly ten years, her routine has shaped awareness of plastic pollution in this coastal community.
