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For 17 years, Mohamed Nasar has supported his family of five by fishing in the Nile River.

But the 58-year-old says fishermen like himself catch fewer fish every year as the Nile has been filled with plastic bottles, bags and other waste.

“The fish are caught in the bottles, and they die,” said Nasar.

A local environmental group named “VeryNile” has asked the island’s fishermen to use their boats to collect plastic bottles from the river. VeryNile says it buys the bottles at a higher price than the market price offered by traders or recycling factories.

The initiative (倡议) provides a solution for helping to clean up the Nile, while providing a way to make more money for fishermen like Nasar.

“This job has helped us a bit. We come and collect about 10 to 15 kilos of plastic bottles, and we get about 12 Egyptian pounds for each,” Nasar said when he sat in his boat collecting bottles.

Nasar, who made about 100 EGP a day after six hours of fishing, can now make another 200 EGP by collecting bottles.

Another fisherman said cleaner Nile water would mean more fish. “On the one hand, the Nile is cleaner, and on the other hand, the fisherman now has more ways to make money,” he said.

With the help of more than 40 fishermen, over the past year VeryNile has collected around 18 tons of plastic bottles, and most of them went to the recycling factory and were made into new things.