On a clear day from the beaches of Yeonpyeong, a tiny South Korean island, you can see the coast of North Korea some 12 km (seven miles) distant. Glance down, however, and you might see something else. Amid the tangle of seaweed and greying driftwood, the chunks of bleached polystyrene and shreds of fishing net, there may lurk bits of brightly coloured plastic.
To the untrained observer, these scraps – sweet wrappers, cigarette cartons, instant noodle packets, all covered in oversized script, vivid colours and garish cartoon characters – might only confirm the Yellow Sea as one of Earth’s most polluted marine environments. To the sharp-eyed, however, encoded in the design of these snippets is valuable information about the society from which they originate: North Korea, virtually a closed shop to the rest of the world.
