Huge deposits of multi-coloured plastic, dragged along by various tributaries, cover the calm waters of Lake Suchitlan in El Salvador like a blanket. The same happens on the paradisiacal beaches of the Honduran Caribbean, which receive thousands of tons of waste from Guatemala. Dozens of local people in El Salvador and Honduras clean up by hand beaches and reservoirs littered with all kinds of plastic material. The fishers of this huge Salvadorian artificial lake, the country's largest body of freshwater, claim that pollution has pushed the fish into deep waters where they cannot cast their nets to catch it. "We cannot live without fishing," says Salvadorian fisherman Luis Penate, who lives in Potonico, the most affected of some 15 lakeside villages. Likewise, on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, the sand is practically covered by a thick plastic carpet of containers, syringes and other waste. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES