Plastic bottles and empty beer cans roll on the sea floor in the waters around Phuket in southern Thailand, while ever more garbage piles up on the island itself, a tourist hotspot better known ...

Phuket, Thailand's largest island (360 sq mi/930 sq km—about the size of Singapore), is known as the pearl of the Andaman Sea. The island of Phuket (pronounced poo-KET) is linked to the mainland ...