Britain exported 139,000 tonnes of rubbish to Turkey last year, leaving smallholders and poor districts of Adana to cope with the debris, microplastics and toxic smoke

Plastic debris clings to the reeds in a waterway metres from where Ayhan*, a farmer in Adana, southern Turkey, is harvesting aubergines. “We get pollution from all sides here,” he says, referring to the plastic recycling zone upstream, as well as a nearby textile plant that he suspects is making the water acidic. “The plastics are all there, by the bank, and the fumes come this way.”

“Every year we install the greenhouse tarps, and when we bring them down we have to clean the surface because we find a black coating, coming from the fumes of these places,” says Ayhan.

In January, canal water flooded on to his land after heavy rain, destroying seven hectares (17 acres) of crops, he claims. “We had to plant new ones. But what can we do? Nothing. Nowhere to file a complaint – nobody cares.”