Trash Diving: A Global Comparison—An Expanding Rena Mälaren and Trash Divers in Brazil and Thailand

In this last ethnographic chapter, I begin by outlining how the trash scuba diving organization began its expansion outside of the capital, with visits to the two towns Västerås and Gothenburg. This is followed by a discussion of environmental ethics: how the divers hope to attach feelings of disgust to waste objects in the water in order to make people not contribute to more waste ending up in the marine environment. Then the chapter leaves Sweden in a comparative exercise where we travel to first Brazil and then Thailand in order to learn about trash diving on other continents, with other political contexts, but especially, with other types of material qualities of water: visibility and temperature. We will see not only how different types of water impact both trash diving practices, but also where and how waste ends up in the water. The chapter further engages with a beach cleaning organization in Thailand.