Their bicycles carry industrial-size grab-nets, rice sacks and white plastic buckets in which crabs clamber slowly.

ECONOMIST: Musings on a favourite memento mori

On any given afternoon, pierced, black-clad youth crowd around tables sharing mugs of pulque from pink and blue plastic buckets.

BBC: The return of Mexico��s national nectar

So all the water her family uses is in drums, plastic buckets, pots - any container that is clean.

BBC: RELATED BBC SITES

Adding to the experience are the free plastic buckets and spades for making sandcastles, portable goals for beach soccer, nets for volleyball and even giant touch-screen internet terminals on the boardwalk.

BBC: South Korea��s second city

The scheme, officially launched in September, allows rigid plastic items, such as buckets, garden furniture and children's toys to be recycled.

BBC: Longue Hougue recycling site

It is currently cheaper, an Indian businessman says ruefully, to export plastic granules to China and then import them again in bucket-form, than it is to make buckets in India.

ECONOMIST: India and China

Though you may find a few tangled nets, buckets and bottle caps, there are no fabled islands of trash, only a thin soup of plastic.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS