The target . Director Jiu-liang Wang is one of the few documentary filmmakers in China to have taken on the government and won. He used a pickax to drive them off and was imprisoned for that for half a year. This means that people eating fish have also been consuming plastics. 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. The state-owned company was recently named the third-largest single-use plastic waste producer in the world, where in 2019, it reportedly churned out about 5.3 million tonnes of plastics. Hand-picked stories once a fortnight. Based on current rates, the countrys total population could reach up to 1.46 billion by 2028, resulting in even high amounts of waste. 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. Something doesn't add up here. Initially Feng. , resulting in mounting plastic packaging. hide caption. The film also alerted people in China to the dangers of haphazard waste management, and drew attention to the sheer mass of waste generated by a city the size of Beijing. 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. Additionally, China currently tops the list of biggest greenhouse gas emitters though the US overtakes it for emissions per capita. Our current pattern of manufacture, consume, discard is creating a chain of exploitation; it exploits the workers making our products, it exploits us through merciless advertising; and it exploits millions of poverty-stricken laborers working for a pittance like Kun and Peng in Plastic China. The problem The bike-sharing craze in China five years ago sucked in billions of dollars of investors' cash and clients' deposits that start-ups spent on millions of new bikes in an effort to grab market share. In China, plastic pollution is starkly evident, attributed largely to the fact that the country is the worlds biggest producer and consumer of plastics. The young girl would love to visit the United States, but shed settle for going to school something her father, Peng, an alcoholic who works for the plant manager, has no interest in making happen. "People act in funny ways," she says. Some scenes in the film take place in a dumpsite, where waste is burned in the open, or next to a river, where it accumulates. For some, the pain is still too much to bear. When combined, the plastic pollution situation in China may seem bleak, raising fears of its monumental and possibly irreversible environmental damage and degradation. "Officials would kidnap you if you tried to have two children. This brings us to the topic of censorship. The ban was initiated in January of this year and undoubtedly the shockwaves are being felt in the international community as countries look to Asia for another foreign landfill. After six months of getting to know two families who worked at one small plant, Wang was allowed intimate access to their lives. 2014 and Persico 2010) and Zhao Liang (see Sorace 2017), among other leading Chinese independent filmmakers. The . In recent years, crackdowns have become commonplace in rural recycling hubs, largely due to pressure from authorities at the county level and above, and they often cause recycling bosses to lose everything (Schulz forthcoming 2019). But some babies were alive when they were born and began crying. Several experts I engaged with in recent months put forward the idea that the film prompted officials in Beijing to take this kind of action, or at least influenced them significantly (see also L 2018). But Stuart Gietel-Basten, a demographer at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, cautions there is no definitive answer. 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. The plan also seeks to promote plastic alternatives such as bamboo, wood and paper (and scientific research into biodegradable plastics) over the next five years, as well as clearing plastic waste from key lakes and rivers, tourist attractions and rural areas. "I thought this is it if I do not have this child, my body will not be able to have any more.". India News | Latest India News | Read latest and breaking news from India. He currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at the China Centre, University of Oxford. Our current pattern of manufacture, consume, discard is creating a chain of exploitation; it exploits the workers making our products, it exploits us through merciless advertising; and it exploits millions of poverty-stricken laborers working for a pittance like . 0000001943 00000 n your subscription today, Canadian Journalism Foundation Award for Climate Solutions Reporting. No one can afford that," she complains. After 25 years as the world's salvage king, China refused to buy any recycled plastic scrap that wasn't 99.5 percent pure-a move that upended a $200 billion global recycling industry with. But last year, China put the kibosh on . This prompted the Chinese government to introduce a raft of new laws and regulations to limit plastic waste in 2020, and announced a plan for 2021 to 2025 which aims to further improve the management of the entire chain of plastic pollution. First, this narrow focus fails to do justice to the richness and complexity of Wangs second, cinema version of Plastic China, whichunlike the first version targeting the pressconstitutes a broad social commentary and critique. His descendants inherited his d. All the issues mentioned above are central to Wangs narrative in Plastic China. , 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. 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. Children ride a toy train at a shopping mall in Beijing, on Oct. 30, 2015. 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. 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. Get focused newsletters especially designed to be concise and easy to digest. Dr. Steven Svehlak and Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Payman Simoni agree. 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. In sum, China's exercise of power has been more hard than soft. Then in 2016, the state allowed two children. "There was also rapid urbanization, economic growth, industrialization, female emancipation and more female labor force participation. The suit led to an apology from the authorities in Linyi and a reduction in the kidnappings, beatings and forced abortions. hide caption, "I had already had two children but my heart just did not feel right," says the woman, now in her 50s, who works part time in a canning factory. Welcome to Wang Jiuliangs 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. That's up from 152 million ten years. Her son is part of the last generation of children in China whose births were ruled illegal at the time. While more time is needed to analyse the bans impacts domestically, it has had rippling effects across global plastic pollution and management. State media celebrated the news. Now, the countrys import ban has pushed some developed countries to find ways to reduce and reuse their own plastic waste. Just like Beijing Besieged by Waste, the movie uncovers a gnarly scene beyond the cosmopolitan city. Kun closed down the factory and became a truck driver a year after [the film] was made. Directors Jiu-liang Wang Genres Documentary Subtitles English [CC] Indeed, they cut across borders and sectors of economic activity. one-child policy, official program initiated in the late 1970s and early '80s by the central government of China, the purpose of which was to limit the great majority of family units in the country to one child each. This is on top of the fact that Chinas population is growing by 0.5% on average annually. Twenty-something Kun is a hard worker with a dream of buying a new car to boost his social status. Its massive local plastic production further contributes to Chinas lion share of global greenhouse emissions mainly from coal production. If you were hiding and they could not find you, they would kidnap your elder relatives and make them stand in cold water, in the winter," remembers Lu Bilun, a resident. The daughter of a young plastic factory worker, Yi Jie, looks over a heap of plastic while cradling her baby sibling. There is something profoundly disturbing in the Wangs purchase of a shiny new sedan car. 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. Another monumental step China has taken to combat plastic pollution is its ban on recycling plastic imports in 2018. One night, family planning officials approached her husband, intending to pressure him and his wife into ending the pregnancy. Wang is a recognised authority on the topic of waste in China. Because many prioritized having a son over a daughter, orphanages experienced a surge in baby girls who were abandoned or put up for adoption. She builds forts inside the recyclables and rifles through Western magazines, piecing together clues about life beyond the garbage and enriching it with fantasies. "Despite all the overwhelming demographic evidence, they're saying, 'We need to control you,'" says the author, Fong. Mao Yin was snatched aged two, while his father stopped to get him some water on the way home. The film clearly belongs to Chinas new documentary movement, which has created an important space for social commentary and critique since the early 1990s (Berry and Rofel 2010). 0000002606 00000 n 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. It is a moment that for many observers has come to define strongman leader Xi Jinping's tightening grip on China: his visibly frail predecessor, Hu Jintao, being escorted out of . It was featured in numerous festivals outside China, and has won several awards. 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. Bright-eyed children run between heaping piles of plastic, a worn-out worker spends his meager wages on alcohol, and a preteen girl gazes solemnly at Western product advertisements she picks out of the monstrous piles of trash around her home. In the cinema version of Plastic China, the concept of labour exploitation applies more clearly within China and even among former peasants than it does between China and the highly industrialised countries from which waste is imported. Why won't China remove all caps? The aspect of the film that most stuck with me personally was how Plastic China depicted the poor standard of waste management in rural China. She carried her son to term while hiding in a relative's house. 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. For decades, China has relied on superficial policies targeting plastic to reduce waste in the country. Wang turned his focus to imported plastic, and after some digging, learned that it was being brought to a little town in the province of Shandong, along the coast. Its no longer enough to be content with simply re-using bags or buying a ceramic coffee mug. It is important to stress that, while these features of Chinas contemporary condition can be observed in rural recycling hubs, they are not unique to these places. In conclusion, Plastic China constitutes a broad reflexion on social problems and dilemmas in the post-socialist era. The film does not tell its audience how this situation came about, but it is easy to associate it with rural migrants generally limited access to healthcare. But Chinas contribution to the global plastic crisis does not end there. It is against this backdrop that Plastic China came out in 2016. Image by: Our World in Data. Priscilla Presley before and after (Source: Radar Online) Experts reckon that the 77-year-old has likely had cheek and lip fillers, skin resurfacing treatments, and a face-lift. The U.S., Japan and Germany are all at the top of the list when it comes to exporting their used plastic. According to the census conducted last year, the population is aging and there are fewer young children and working-age people, a major demographic shift that comes with its own economic strains. In 2017, China collected 215 million tonnes of urban household waste, according to the country's statistical yearbook. He's the youngest of three children this mother had under China's. This is obvious in, among others, his choice of topic (Chinas economic growth and opening to the world as experienced by the countrys underclass), his relationships with subjects (long-term involvement, much like that of an anthropologist), and his cinematographic style (observational realism involving on-the-spot and spontaneous shooting, a director who stands behind the camera, and the absence of voiceover). She wanted to avoid the "family planning officials" in her home village, just outside Linyi, a city of 11 million in China's northern Shandong province, where the policy's enforcement was especially violent. But Kunwho is Han, from Shandong province, and can read and writerefuses, telling Wenyuan that he can always leave if he is not satisfied. A portrait of poverty, ambition and hope set in a world of waste. trailer <<4243014C4E284DEB98C83941C307E81B>]/Prev 529831>> startxref 0 %%EOF 74 0 obj <>stream It was vicious," he says. Please help us make our goal! When his wife became pregnant again, he hoped for a son,. Despite this, plastic waste continues to soar partly due to the relatively low cost of plastic bags shoppers are therefore not deterred to pay for one and the rapid rise of e-commerce, and delivery services, resulting in mounting plastic packaging. It is therefore not surprising that Plastic China is generally invoked, both within and outside of China, in connection with the global capitalist system that, for many years at least, allowed relatively rich countries to pass the burden of pollution on to China. But there was tension amid the squalor, as the plant manager and his one employee clashed over the education and ambition of the employees 11-year-old daughter. one of the fairly recent ancesto. Families of people who died after contracting coronavirus in China's former epicentre Wuhan say they are constantly monitored and warned by authorities, who tell them speaking out will damage . That part of the industry is very sensitive, and if you have nothing to do with them, you cant get in, Wang said. This targeted Boosting helps us to reach wider audiences aiming to convince the unconvinced, to inform the uninformed, to enlighten the dogmatic. There were virtually no incentives to comply with environmental and safety regulation, and local authorities made little effort to improve the sectorin large part because officials at the village or town level had a stake in rapid, unbridled economic growth. Yet, towards the end of the film, the Wangs spend their entire savingsand even borrow moneyto purchase a vehicle for which they seem to have little practical need. In the film we witness Kun and his family looking for a new car, despite the fact that their old family van continues to serve them fairly well. We promise, no spam! Back in the 1960s, more than 100 children - mostly abandoned, mostly babies and mostly girls - were brought over from Hong Kong to be adopted by British families. 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. "There is no point in controlling them. Even if I had to go to prison and endure beatings, in the end, these children were able to survive. Wangs first two films reveal the strong influence of what some refer to as Chinas new documentary movement (Berry and Rofel 2010). Yet, something in Plastic China must have bothered Chinese censors, and prompted them to intervene. Among contributing factors was Plastic China (suliao wangguo, 2016), a documentary directed by Wang Jiuliang. of plastic inputs in oceans while putting China at 7%. 0000021210 00000 n 0000010492 00000 n "Women have it all figured out now they won't have more kids even when they're told to have more!" Yet, have linked the Yangtze river as the one of the biggest sources of global plastic pollution, claiming the river to be responsible for more than half of all marine plastic pollution, but more recent studies found that the, Philippines accounts for more than one-third. The U.S. used to send a lot of its plastic waste to China to get recycled. The smiles that break across their grubby faces belie a bleak existence for the families that scrape by sorting plastic waste. One ton of unsorted waste was sold to China for about $9. Climate. And I was carrying a camera, so it was especially tough at the beginning. 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. 0000020209 00000 n The photographer-turned-director's debut documentary, 2011's Beijing Besieged by. Jan. 1 marked a significant cultural shift in China starting this year, families will be able to have two children. In 2020 alone, China produced about 60 million tonnes of plastic waste, yet only 16 million tonnes of which was recycled, according to the China National Resources Recycling Association. After recording only 213 deaths and about 13,000 cases of COVID-19 from January 2020 to early 2022, the city is swamped by the current Omicron wave, which began at the start of the year and has . 0000009053 00000 n This change will not be easy, but it must be done. That same year, he expressed his intention to undertake a follow-up project on waste imports beyond plastics, which he tentatively titled Dumping Ground of the World (shijie de laji chang) (Liu 2014). Puren was the youngest brother of the final Qing monarch Puyi, who ruled for four years until 1912. China had 1 million more births in 2016 than in 2015, following the end of the one-child policy. We figured out that the waste wasnt necessarily Chinese waste, so I started to research what was behind this huge mountain of waste and all the dumping, and the fires, and smog, Wang told Inverse, through a translator, at Sundance. His mother watches him approvingly. Ng Han Guan/AP A portrait of poverty, ambition and hope set in a world of waste. I saw the manager pointing to some of the garbage that was being sent out and saying, Those are going to China, and I said, what? 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