They must be in middle school or high school by now.". A further issue highlighted in the film is that of conspicuous consumption. His mother watches him approvingly. China boosts electric car fleet for public transport, Support award-winning independent journalism with 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. 60 Pieces Disposable Plastic Plates Set, Premium Plates for Parties with Real China Design, Red Plates Set - 30 x10.25 Inch Dinner and 30 x7.5 Inch Salad Hard Plates Combo (Warm Red) 189. An important implication is that improving the lives of the people who live in rural recycling hubs and engage in waste sorting and processing requires more than putting an end to waste importsespecially if imports are substituted with domestic waste, of which there is no shortage in China. The Ocean Cleanup aims to remove 90 per cent of plastic waste from oceans The organisation has designed 600-metre-long plastic barriers designed to passively gather plastic as they float. 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? When probed about why he doesnt send his kids to school, his reply is that he prefers to spend money on drinking, musing that his children can attend school for free whenever they return to his home village. Why won't China remove all caps? First of all his film tackles the problem of labour exploitation. 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. Yet, something in Plastic China must have bothered Chinese censors, and prompted them to intervene. For some, the pain is still too much to bear. Director Jiu-Liang Wang refers to PLASTIC CHINA as a title which riffs on the idea of plastic surgerya way of masking the underlying physical truth of any given situation. Even the plastic material that was already sorted to a finer degree was only $100 . As a result of ocean plastic pollution, where plastics slowly break down into smaller debris and particles called microplastics, one study discovered that all 21 species of sea fish and freshwater fish from Chinese waters that were examined have ingested plastic. 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. Plastic China 's portrait of a migrant worker and his family, and the factory's ambitious owner, is touching and saddening, and puts a human face on the problems caused by China's rush to. Her job at a nearby canning factory refuses to hire her full time, she says, because she is a mother of three and needs to leave every afternoon to pick up her son from school. He used a pickax to drive them off and was imprisoned for that for half a year. 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. Puren was the youngest brother of the final Qing monarch Puyi, who ruled for four years until 1912. A Chinese family has been forced to give up their pet dog after realizing they had actually adopted a black bear. 0000009053 00000 n While more time is needed to analyse the bans impacts domestically, it has had rippling effects across global plastic pollution and management. The U.S. used to send a lot of its plastic waste to China to get recycled. In China, rural migrants are generally registered in their place of origin but spend most of their time living far away from their hometowns. "Officials would kidnap you if you tried to have two children. In this rugged hardpan of north China known for poverty and coal, Zhang Yi had but two frail daughters to help scratch out a living. The U.S., Japan and Germany are all at the top of the list when it comes to exporting their used plastic. Much like The Swan, a show that ran concurrently . This targeted Boosting helps us to reach wider audiences aiming to convince the unconvinced, to inform the uninformed, to enlighten the dogmatic. His mother watches him approvingly. By the container load, the cast-off plastic comes from Korea, Europe and the US. Trailer for 'Plastic China' film by director Wang Jiuliang. "There is no point in controlling them. 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. If we do nothing and continue to turn our beautiful world into a Wall-E-esque nightmare, then the fate of our civilization will be suicide by garbage. Following the accepted narrative about China, its citizens might be expected to worship sons and disdain daughters. 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. siQ6_{#WP(*K9-4GF(NTZ,GI2RV#PF"@(!9BI-$(E^D]ut(nK Jgu")( D)" But some babies were alive when they were born and began crying. 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. 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. Written on 17 January 2019. On January 1, 2019, a ban on plastic straws in restaurants and other service businesses began in Washington, D.C. Read on for the reasons . She babysits, cooks, works and teaches her three younger siblings while her parents do the same back-breaking work day in and day out. The legacy of China's one-child rule is still painfully felt by many of those who suffered for having more children. In connection with this, the film represents a reflection on the legal status and living conditions of Chinas floating population (liudong renkou). 0000001315 00000 n During that time, imperial China was replaced by the Republic of China. In other words, though it looks good exteriorly, it has a lot of interior problems (Kanthor 2017). It is imperative that we completely eliminate unnecessary plastics, and that can only be achieved by radically changing our habits and becoming conscious of the environment with everything we do and everything we buy. It was announced in late 2015 that the program was to end in early 2016. When the inevitable collapse came, most of the companies went bankrupt, leaving city authorities having to pay to clean up the mess. That's up from 152 million ten years. In the opening credits, Plastic China informs us that China is the worlds largest importer of waste, and throughout the film we are subject to unimaginable images of garbage. 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. 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. Ran Zheng for NPR A Chinese couple whose son was abducted in a hotel in 1988 have been reunited with him after 32 years. Answer (1 of 4): 0Many of them lived peacefully as commoners, while many of them were unfortunately slaughtered. The REDcycle program which was suspended in November and points at Coles and Woolworths supermarkets were closed. In one interview about the film, Wang stated that: China is a country that is facelifted, concealed, faked and unnatural. 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 . This film debuted two years ago, but its relevance is striking in the wake of Chinas sudden refusal to continue importing foreign waste. 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. {&L Q4t)o('aJ. It forces us to re-examine our waste habits and confront the reality that every time we throw out our beloved Tim Hortons coffee cups, we are poisoning our environment at an alarming rate. After six months of getting to know two families who worked at one small plant, Wang was allowed intimate access to their lives. In this sense, Plastic China has arguably played a key role in the recent evolution of the trade in recyclable waste. 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). Yi-Jie is an 11-year-old girl who works and lives at a plastics recycling facility in the documentary "Plastic China." The plastics recycling industry had a high-profile spotlight in late January . Even if I had to go to prison and endure beatings, in the end, these children were able to survive. %PDF-1.4 % of mismanaged plastic waste, and is the biggest offender of ocean plastic pollution. Immediately afterwards, he embarked on a new project. 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. There is one obvious, clear, imperative measure that we all must make a priority- we must reduce the amount of plastics we use every day. It was featured in numerous festivals outside China, and has won several awards. Municipalities across Canada are struggling under the weight of the rapidly accumulating plastics with no plan in place to deal with them, and it will continue to worsen if we keep living the way we have been. Her body was giving her all the telltale signs that she was pregnant again. Her son is part of the last generation of children in China whose births were ruled illegal at the time. 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. With almost a spooky resemblance to Wildenstein, the Bogdanoff brothers - like her - are still injecting and filling into their seventies. The man wants to remain unnamed because he believes he could be harassed again for speaking of that time. He asks Wang Kun, his boss and the owner of the recycling workshop the Pengs work in, for a raise. Directors Jiu-liang Wang Genres Documentary Subtitles English [CC] China used to take much of it, but has banned imports of plastic waste so where does it now go? So the mother went into hiding to carry her son to term. 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. 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. It now collects its community's plastic trash and turns it into fuel. The policy permeates through Chinese society in other, sometimes unexpected ways. Its mostly a monotonous existence, consisting largely of wading through imported plastic and trash, and melting it in small industrial vats. Dr. Steven Svehlak and Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Payman Simoni agree. Two of the more tragic examples - who were born identical twins and appear to be twinning themselves with duelling plastic surgeries - are French TV stars Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff. 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. 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). Eight to 14 million tons of plastic waste ends up in oceans every single year, causing great harm to marine life, from accidental ingestion and entanglement, to increasing the risk of invasive species, which can throw entire ecosystems off balance. Among contributing factors was Plastic China (suliao wangguo, 2016), a documentary directed by Wang Jiuliang. Global mismanaged waste in total. Instead of numbing us with facts like how China has contaminated over 80 per cent of its fresh water through landfills and processing, he gets us to feel bad for Kun, Peng and their kids; if we identified with their plight, perhaps we wouldnt want to send so much trash for them to sort through. The photographer-turned-director's debut documentary, 2011's Beijing Besieged by. This means that people eating fish have also been consuming plastics. Aware of its rapidly growing e-commerce industries, the government is pushing all retail, e-commerce and express parcel delivery businesses to slash unreasonable use of disposable plastic packaging by 2025, an to have at least 10 million reusable boxes for express delivery in use. Summaries. 0000035823 00000 n Its river basin comprises one-fifth of the countrys land area, and supports and houses nearly one-third of the population. In conclusion, Plastic China constitutes a broad reflexion on social problems and dilemmas in the post-socialist era. Election. They did not officially register the last two to avoid paying a fine, but the father says he still paid a bribe to family planning officials to avoid further harassment. 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 . 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. of the plastic used in China is recycled in some shape or form. Moreover, Plastic China contains virtually no direct criticism of any government, state-owned enterprise, or other powerful entitya key difference with Under the Dome (qiong ding zhi xia 2015), another documentary on Chinas environmental predicament that also went viral and disappeared from the Internet in a matter of days. 0000001943 00000 n Chen had been persecuted and detained in China after his work advising villagers and speaking out official abuses under the one-child rule. We promise, no spam! 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 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. And so, ironically, now that people are allowed to have more children, they are increasingly reluctant to, because of the high cost of child care and education. Even before China's ban, only 9 percent of discarded plastic was being recycled, while 12 percent was burned. "There was also rapid urbanization, economic growth, industrialization, female emancipation and more female labor force participation. 0000003355 00000 n Now, the countrys import ban has pushed some developed countries to find ways. Because many prioritized having a son over a daughter, orphanages experienced a surge in baby girls who were abandoned or put up for adoption. hide caption. Image from 'Plastic China' documentary website. This means that people eating fish have also been consuming plastics. A familiar margarine packet among the mountains of rubbish in a backyard recycling facility on China. You might also like: Solution for Plastic Pollution: 6 Policies and Innovations Tackling Plastics, Featured image by: Sheila/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). B!$H BBAZ[:]nu+n:utvw=vvw9}#AaH"\mAnirF~'U44`~4w~gqci)kJ A burning armoured personnel carrier on 4 June 1989, near Tiananmen Square. In 2014, Wang released an early, less narrative but more explanatory version of his documentary addressed at the media, in which he clearly frames the issue as environmental dumping. Thats the main source of outward tension in the film, though the squalor in which they all live is a painful commentary on the costs of rapid growth in such a stratified country. Last October, Jian Feng, a man reportedly from northern China, sued and divorced his wife after she had a daughter who was "incredibly ugly" and did not resemble either parent. 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. This includes a ban on free shopping and carrier bags a 2016 survey data 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. Since its release, the film has become indissociable from the issue of waste exports, and it gained even more prominence after July 2017, when the Chinese government announced a wide-ranging ban on foreign waste (yang laji) (Liebman 2018). The rationale for implementing the policy was to reduce the growth rate of China's enormous population. His research explores Chinas state project of ecological modernisation from the angle of e-waste reuse and recycling. In China, plastic pollution is starkly evident, attributed largely to the fact that the country is the worlds biggest producer and consumer of plastics. During the reform era, this has prevented them from enjoying key rights and public services in their place of residence. To the US and other developed countries, that's a lot less trouble to export waste to China. When asked about the dangers facing him, Wang just shrugged. On July 16 that year, as Beijing was gearing up to hold the Summer Olympics, Zhang flagged the sudden increase of infant cases to his hospital's dean, who then reported them to the local health. When the ancestral temples were destroyed most families lost the records of their extended family. November 15, 2022. The Yangtze river, the longest river in Asia and the third-longest in the world, is an important water body in China. hb```"qVta1 FsD Parents were not penalized for having twins, at least not according to the letter of the law. The mother of one of these middle schoolers holds her son close. At some point, Wang Kun pushes for Yijie to attend a local kindergarten, even offering to cover the costs, yet Yijies father, Peng Wenyuan, refuses, preferring that she continue to sort plastics, do household chores, and take care of her younger siblings.

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