of mismanaged plastic waste, and is the biggest offender of ocean plastic pollution. By the time the reality show ended in 2007 after 52 episodes across four seasons it was tainted with low ratings and a lot of controversy. He used a pickax to drive them off and was imprisoned for that for half a year. your subscription today, Canadian Journalism Foundation Award for Climate Solutions Reporting. Her worries these days are more mundane. Yvan Schulz obtained his PhD from the Anthropology Institute, University of Neuchtel in February 2018. Either the government is already losing faith in the reality of its implementation, or it needs a bigger budget for advertising. "Officials would kidnap you if you tried to have two children. one of the fairly recent ancesto. She picks out broken Barbie dolls and passes over Western product labels, a seemingly deliberate shot for Wang to remind viewers of the vastly different worlds between the kids who tossed those toys away and the ones on the other side of the world who pick them out of the trash to play with. Viewers learn that this has to do with her status as a migrant, her familys meagre earnings, and her fathers alcoholism. The doctors strangled or drowned those babies.". Much like The Swan, a show that ran concurrently . Wangs camera catches heartbreaking images of Jie, the preteen with a collapsing weight of responsibility on her young shoulders. However, the film is all too often reduced to its function as a tool for denouncing environmental dumping. The smiles that break across their grubby faces belie a bleak existence for the families that scrape by sorting plastic waste. As research on plastic and its detriments on the environment increasingly pop up on our news feeds, its obvious that weve reached a breaking point. In the film, Peng Wenyuanwho comes from Sichuan province, belongs to the Yi ethnic group, and is almost illiteratecomplains repeatedly about his salary. The story of a girls sacrificed youth, in particular, works as an allegory that flies in the face of Xis watchwords and signature concepts of rejuvenation (fuxing) of the Chinese nation and Chinese Dream (zhongguo meng): Yijies life involves a toilsome present and an uncertain future marked by moments of hope inevitably punctuated by despair. Some demographers in China argue that instituting birth limits was necessary for keeping birth rates low. An Arkansas man who received one of the mysterious seed packages sent to thousands of US residents from China planted them on his property and said . While the ban has potentially helped China reduce its domestic plastic pollution, it barely made a dent in reducing global waste and instead, shifted the responsibility to other poorer countries. Single's Day, China's biggest online shopping holiday akin to Black Friday in the U.S. is a recognition of the many bachelors who are unable to find partners in a gender-skewed society. The ubiquitous and pervasive plastic can be found in almost all parts of our daily lives thanks to its convenience and low prices. In China recycling is done by the trash collectors who specialize in different kinds of refuse rubber, aluminum, tin, plastic, paper and either collect these materials by going house to house or sort through the garbage, selling what they find to traders. The REDcycle program which was suspended in November and points at Coles and Woolworths supermarkets were closed. By donating us $100, $50 or subscribe to Boosting $10/month we can get this article and others in front of tens of thousands of specially targeted readers. Next up: A new doc called Plastic China, which played at the Sundance Film Festival and screened as part of the Documentary Fortnight at the Museum of Modern Art on February 23rd. For years, even social scientists have supported a widely held belief that Chinese . hide caption. For instance, Gurao, once Chinas largest bra manufacturing hub, struggles with waste-related pollution of comparable gravity to that of neighbouring Guiyu, the countrys infamous e-waste recycling capital. There are over 5,000 little unregulated recycling plants in the town alone, giving Wang plenty of subject options. It was followed very selectively. Following the accepted narrative about China, its citizens might be expected to worship sons and disdain daughters. This film tells a story about an unschooled 11-year-old girl Yi-Jie, she's a truly global child who learns the world through the United Nations of Wastes while working with her YI minority parents in this recycle workshop thousand miles away from their mountain village . In the absence of any recognisably subversive content, I would argue that it was the image of China conveyed by Wangs bleak and shocking depiction of the countrys recycling sector that struck a nerve. An old friend of hers, the blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, knows full well what she and tens of thousands of other women in Linyi city went through. That's pushing policymakers to consider raising the official retirement age currently 60 for men and 55 for women for the first time in 40 years. And according to an Associated Press investigation, it continues to impose stricter controls over births including forced sterilizations among ethnic minorities, like the Turkic Uyghurs. SCn ` ]-3 endstream endobj 44 0 obj <>>> endobj 45 0 obj <>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageC]/Properties<>/XObject<>>>/Rotate 0/TrimBox[0.0 0.0 595.276 841.89]/Type/Page>> endobj 46 0 obj [47 0 R] endobj 47 0 obj <>/Border[0 0 0]/H/N/Rect[248.776 776.077 346.366 766.333]/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> endobj 48 0 obj <> endobj 49 0 obj <> endobj 50 0 obj <> endobj 51 0 obj <> endobj 52 0 obj <> endobj 53 0 obj <>stream Wang is a recognised authority on the topic of waste in China. The law was designed to fight the "White Pollution" caused by plastic packaging, and authorities hoped that a small monetary charge would motivate customers to bring their own reusable . With Plastic China, Wang aimed to raise awareness of his homelands role in the global waste trade, and expose its negative repercussions on the Chinese population and environment. 0000010125 00000 n Midway through its annual session, China's ceremonial parliament is focusing on boosting the economy, building self-reliance in technology and further squeezing room for political opposition in Hong Kong. Among the films many harrowing scenes is that of Pengs wife giving birth to her fourth child in the Wangs garden, with what looks like a total absence of medical assistance. But some babies were alive when they were born and began crying. Landfills stretch out endlessly, enormous hills of colourful plastic bottles loom in the distance, and what we can only presume to be toxic water run-off from the factory is what Jie uses to wet her hair before she brushes it. From Jun 1 of that year, customers began to be charged for plastic shopping bags, and a total ban of ultrathin (less than 0.025mm thick) bags came into action. The question remains, however, whether this was worth the enormous sacrifice in financial security, and viewers are left wondering what will happen to the family if Wang Kun is diagnosed with a serious illness. Married couples in China in 2016, were allowed to have two children, after concerns over an aging population and shrinking workforce ushered in an end to the country's controversial one-child policy. Much of the Western worlds waste was once bound for China. Her dreams are daydreams, a way for her to escape the harsh reality she experiences on a daily basis. Trailer for 'Plastic China' film by director Wang Jiuliang. Years of rapid growth have made China appear prosperous, but pollution is having a huge impact on health while Chinas growth appears incredible, it is actually cheap and fragile. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, plastic consumption has soared, adding an extra 25,900 tonnes of plastics in the ocean thats equivalent to more than 2,000 double decker buses. $2599 ($0.87/Count) Save more with Subscribe & Save. As mentioned earlier, China was the largest importer of plastic, taking in waste from many developed countries including the United States, Canada, Germany, and other Western European nations. This includes a ban on free shopping and carrier bags a. showed plastic bags in supermarkets and shopping malls has reduced by more than two thirds and a ban on the production, retail, and use of any plastic bag with a thickness of less than 0.025 mm. Plastic films, plastic bags, the plastic wrapping that comes around a lot of packaged goods, that all goes into the garbage. It is against this backdrop that Plastic China came out in 2016. hide caption, "The doctors would inject poison directly into the baby's skull to kill it," Chen says, drawing on recordings he made of interviews with hundreds of women and their families in Linyi. Now the world is scrambling to adjust. 0000003791 00000 n "There is only one China and there is only one one-child policy, so it is kind of impossible to say the real effect of that was [of the policy]," he says. hide caption. Jan. 1 marked a significant cultural shift in China starting this year, families will be able to have two children. Additionally, China currently tops the list of biggest greenhouse gas emitters though the US overtakes it for emissions per capita. The new documentary 'Plastic China' plunges into the dirty side of recycling. The rest was buried in landfills or simply dumped and left to wash into rivers and . Not only does the country consume at least one fifth of the worlds plastics, it is also the single largest producer and exporter of single-use and virgin plastics (meaning new plastics made without any recycled materials), and up until 2018, the largest importer of plastic as well. WUHAN, China Zhang Hai has a warning to World Health Organization-led scientists researching the origin of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China: Don't be fooled. After all, this type of message is consistent with recent official discourse and practice, which lay great emphasis on environmental protection, leadership in global trade, and national sovereignty. Chinese parents, who have children born outside the country's one-child policy, protest outside the family planning commission in an attempt to have their fines canceled in Beijing, on Jan. 5, 2016. Welcome to Wang Jiuliang's Plastic China, a quiet, intimate look into the lives of two Chinese families barely scraping a living by laboring at a small family run recycling plant. Its actually incredible that the film, which calls into question the Chinese governments devotion to environmentalism and the welfare of its people, actually made it out of the country. 0000022087 00000 n :v9s];"vE\ j{G=vs=_qq/w?/uynBRBViW)42xP.itM"2HX SJXr/^$,^J_gHIum1$OL@*R*06T4W*[>ypNA-y6J]yPW6VV Medical staff massage babies at an infant care center in Yongquan, in Chongqing municipality, in southwest China, on Dec. 15, 2016. Plastic China focuses on materially ambitious factory-owner Kun, his employee Peng, and their families. Work done by environmentalists Chen Liwen and Mao Da from China Zero Waste Alliance (ling feiqi lianmeng) suggests that waste management is either lacking or highly inefficient in the Chinese countryside as a whole, and that much remains to be done in this field (Chitwood 2018). But starting in 2005, the authorities began enforcing the policy with a renewed ferocity in Linyi. 0000003466 00000 n In conclusion, Plastic China constitutes a broad reflexion on social problems and dilemmas in the post-socialist era. Experts warn of an increase in illegal dumping and incineration of plastics as prices for plastic scraps plummet in the wake of Chinas exit from the market it dominated. 0000017207 00000 n Anxious that rapid population growth would strain the country's welfare systems and state-planned economy, the Chinese state began limiting how many children families could have in the late 1970s. This contrasts with the situation of Wang Qiqi, Kuns son, who is sent to the kindergarten so that he can pick up literacy skills early on in the hope that he will get access to a high-earning job later in life, ideally in an office in Beijingit should be noted, however, that Qiqi is not only a boy, but also an only child. Yeah, in China you'll meet tons of people who had siblings born while the one-child policy was in effect. Some businesses have stepped up, too. Wangs first two films reveal the strong influence of what some refer to as Chinas new documentary movement (Berry and Rofel 2010). Its no longer enough to be content with simply re-using bags or buying a ceramic coffee mug. While more time is needed to analyse the bans impacts domestically, it has had rippling effects across global plastic pollution and management. what happened to the families in plastic china. A Chinese family has been forced to give up their pet dog after realizing they had actually adopted a black bear. Boss Kun and his workers separate plastics by burning samples and quickly sniffing the fumes, stimulating God only knows what kinds of cancers and brain damage. , resulting in mounting plastic packaging. They must be in middle school or high school by now.". As a result, awareness of the social and environmental impact of the global trade in recyclables has increased substantially, both within and outside of China. In August 2014, the little girl was able to go to school and she is in third grade now. When I see the value in something, and its necessary to communicate it to a mass audience, any obstacles that might stop me, they dont exist, he said. Written on 17 January 2019. We all must initiate a seismic cultural shift that sees a serious slowing down of our relentless consumerism. AFP via Getty Images To subscribe to email alerts for each issue of the Journal, newly published books, and information about upcoming events, please provide your contact information below. "People act in funny ways," she says. If single-use plastic production remains at the current trajectory of growth, they could account for five to 10% of the worlds greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, further exacerbating climate change. We promise, no spam! 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