Taiwan's Matsu islands are drowning in garbage that floats over from China, and Beijing won't help clean it up — a costly, open-ended problem for a small county.

• More than 90% of the trash washing onto Matsu's beaches comes from China.
• Lienchiang County has asked Beijing repeatedly to ship the waste back and been turned down each time, on the grounds that it is "foreign garbage."
• Matsu sits just over 10 nautical miles from China but more than 110 from Taiwan proper, so sending the trash home would be far cheaper than hauling it to Keelung.
• Even an offer to pay Chinese sand freighters to carry the waste back and resell it was refused.
• Cleanup runs about NT$30 million a year, and the trash has to be quarantined on arrival because of African swine fever risk.

Outlook: With no cooperation from the other side, Matsu will keep paying to collect and ship its neighbor's garbage, leaning on volunteer beach cleanups to keep up.