hide caption. Yet the authorities still only allow couples to have three children. Lu says he paid a 4,000 yuan fine to have his second son in 2006 (about $500 at the time), after hiding his wife for months. Since taking office as president, Xi Jinping has striven to distinguish his government from the previous one. "Despite all the overwhelming demographic evidence, they're saying, 'We need to control you,'" says the author, Fong. The policy permeates through Chinese society in other, sometimes unexpected ways. What happened to the little girl in plastic China? Directors Jiu-liang Wang Genres Documentary Subtitles English [CC] Now, the countrys import ban has pushed some developed countries to find ways to reduce and reuse their own plastic waste. The photographer-turned-director's debut documentary, 2011's Beijing Besieged by. We promise, no spam! Image by: Our World in Data. 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. 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. Some demographers in China argue that instituting birth limits was necessary for keeping birth rates low. 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. 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. 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. Katherine Martinko is a writer and expert in sustainable living. 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. In the last two years, the issue of waste exports to China has attractedconsiderable mediaand public attention. There, he was picked up by supporters and driven to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. 0000010492 00000 n To the US and other developed countries, that's a lot less trouble to export waste to China. 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 even there Johnson found numerous stories of families going to great lengths . His focus on the daily life of two families in a shared domestic space, where exploitation unfolds in an intimate setting, allows him to give an otherwise commonplace phenomenon a particularly raw and emotional dimension. Plastic China: Directed by Jiuliang Wang. "This was not your average level of policy enforcement. When combined, the plastic pollution situation in China may seem bleak, raising fears of its monumental and possibly irreversible environmental damage and degradation. 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. 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. While more time is needed to analyse the bans impacts domestically, it has had rippling effects across global plastic pollution and management. Fish makes up the majority of diets for many people in China. 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. The brother of China's last emperor who was pushed off the throne more than 100 years ago has died. 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. In August 2014, the little girl was able to go to school and she is in third grade now. This is on top of the fact that Chinas population is growing by 0.5% on average annually. How China's plastic waste ban forced a global recycling reckoning. August 4, 2020 1:46pm. He and his wife persevered and had three sons. The rest was buried in landfills or simply dumped and left to wash into rivers and . Climate. Giving birth to him was a huge risk and she took no chances. Following the accepted narrative about China, its citizens might be expected to worship sons and disdain daughters. In 2012, Chen escaped by scaling a wall and running to the next village, despite being blind and having broken his foot during the escape. ". It was featured in numerous festivals outside China, and has won several awards. Her son is part of the last generation of children in China whose births were ruled illegal at the time. Please help us make our goal! Han Dynasty Emperor Xian of Han, the last emperor of Han dynasty died as a duke. 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 . 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 . 0000019453 00000 n It is against this backdrop that Plastic China came out in 2016. A portrait of poverty, ambition and hope set in a world of waste. The legacy of China's one-child rule is still painfully felt by many of those who suffered for having more children. Such a context makes it very risky for the latter to adopt a long-term perspective and invest in new equipment or techniques. 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. He rose to prominence a few years ago thanks to his first film, Beijing Besieged by Waste (laji weicheng, 2012), which revealed the existence of a great number of unauthorised and unmonitored dumpsites around Beijing. In China, the film went viral in January 2017 before quickly disappearing from the Internetthereby following a pattern that affects most of Wangs work (Zhao 2017). China implemented the policy of limiting each family to one child in 1979 to slow the growth of the country's population. 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. One first reason why Plastic China should be considered as a comprehensive reflection on the contemporary condition in China is that this is consistent with the directors intention. A portrait of poverty, ambition and hope set in a world of waste. For decades, China has relied on superficial policies targeting plastic to reduce waste in the country. Trailer for 'Plastic China' film by director Wang Jiuliang. Some businesses have stepped up, too. It followed reports in the Age last month that revealed thousands tonnes of soft. This means that people eating fish have also been consuming plastics. 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). This has lead to a major shift in China, family is now seen as the 3 living generations . Following Pen and his daughter Yi Jie, under the watchful eye of boss Kun, this film shows the lives of those harmed most by severe social inequality. CNN . When the inevitable collapse came, most of the companies went bankrupt, leaving city authorities having to pay to clean up the mess. First of all his film tackles the problem of labour exploitation. 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. One night, family planning officials approached her husband, intending to pressure him and his wife into ending the pregnancy. 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. 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 . 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. 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. one of the fairly recent ancesto. Another factor that justifies adopting a broad interpretation of Plastic China is the wide range of social issues addressed by Wang. 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. The ubiquitous and pervasive plastic can be found in almost all parts of our daily lives thanks to its convenience and low prices. Something doesn't add up here. The film has been particularly closely associated with the issue of waste imports since July 2017, when the Chinese central government hit headlines domestically and internationally by announcing a ban on imports of 24 categories of waste, including many types of plastics (Voice of America 2018). Yeah, in China you'll meet tons of people who had siblings born while the one-child policy was in effect. In the film, Peng Wenyuanwho comes from Sichuan province, belongs to the Yi ethnic group, and is almost illiteratecomplains repeatedly about his salary. A further issue highlighted in the film is that of conspicuous consumption. 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. "It has been so many years, and I have let the pain go," the mother of three says, eyes downcast. 0000003466 00000 n 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. You need an active subscription to post a comment. 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. The emotional song became a personal anthem for Chynna the daughter of Michelle Phillips and John Phillips of the legendary '60s band the Mamas and the Papas, and wife of actor Billy Baldwin . Dr. Steven Svehlak and Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Payman Simoni agree. 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. For decades, China has relied on superficial policies targeting plastic to reduce waste in the country. When asked about the dangers facing him, Wang just shrugged. To compensate for this narrow focus, we need to look beyond the predominant reading. They take her elsewhere, to a place where she can picture a better life, andmost damning of allit looks like this could be abroad. the mother laughs helplessly. trailer <<4243014C4E284DEB98C83941C307E81B>]/Prev 529831>> startxref 0 %%EOF 74 0 obj <>stream 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. The film also resonated with the study of Chinas so-called informal recycling world that I conducted in the mid-2010s (Schulz 2018). Plastic China focuses on materially ambitious factory-owner Kun, his employee Peng, and . LINYI, China Outside, rain falls. If anything, there is considerable overlap between Wangs film and the foreign waste rhetoric that accompanies state authorities action in the field of transboundary movements of waste since the early 2010s, and predates the ban announced in July 2017. But some babies were alive when they were born and began crying. This film debuted two years ago, but its relevance is striking in the wake of Chinas sudden refusal to continue importing foreign waste. 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. A familiar margarine packet among the mountains of rubbish in a backyard recycling facility on China. Trailer for 'Plastic China' film by director Wang Jiuliang. The daughter of a young plastic factory worker, Yi Jie, looks over a heap of plastic while cradling her baby sibling. Summaries. Her worries these days are more mundane. "These effects will be felt in the generation ahead. Global mismanaged waste in total. "People act in funny ways," she says. Yvan Schulz obtained his PhD from the Anthropology Institute, University of Neuchtel in February 2018. 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). Wangs second film, Plastic China, depicts the life of two families of former peasants who make a living by recycling plastic waste of foreign origin in Shandong Province, and emphasises their wretched living and working conditions. Election. 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 For years, even social scientists have supported a widely held belief that Chinese . Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, two major sellers of plastic bottles, have made sweeping sustainability commitments. China's decision to abolish its one-child policy offered some relief to couples and to sellers of baby-related goods, but the government hasn't lifted birth limits entirely. It has been ten months since China closed its doors to the world's recycling waste. AFP via Getty Images 0000022087 00000 n 0000023031 00000 n These economic penalties depleted his life savings, a financial impact that compounded over the ensuing years. Ontario. Plastic China focuses on materially ambitious factory-owner Kun, his employee Peng, and their families. Plastic films, plastic bags, the plastic wrapping that comes around a lot of packaged goods, that all goes into the garbage. This also explains why Wang Kuns plastic recycling workshop, like many others, relies on manual labour and a couple of unsophisticated and antiquated machines. "If you carry it with you all the time, it gets too tiring.". In China, plastic pollution is starkly evident . His research explores Chinas state project of ecological modernisation from the angle of e-waste reuse and recycling. Made in China publications are open access and always available as a free download. 0000018669 00000 n 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. What could the family planning officials have done to her? 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. She demurs, her voice growing quiet. Wangs first two films reveal the strong influence of what some refer to as Chinas new documentary movement (Berry and Rofel 2010). 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. 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. The rationale for implementing the policy was to reduce the growth rate of China's enormous population. 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. The documentary is also a meditation on issues of gender inequality. 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. 0000020209 00000 n 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. Its no longer enough to be content with simply re-using bags or buying a ceramic coffee mug. On average, only about. That was a period where China's growth started booming. There is something profoundly disturbing in the Wangs purchase of a shiny new sedan car. Until there is a. 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. They must be in middle school or high school by now.". "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. Dr. Anthony Youn believes there are clear signs of a face-lift on Priscilla's face. https%3A%2F%2Fearth.org%2Fchina-plastic-pollution%2F. Fish makes up the majority of diets for many people in China. This is regrettable, for two main reasons. China used to take much of it, but has banned imports of plastic waste so where does it now go? The Great Entrenchment: An Unofficial Synopsis of Twentieth Party Congress Spirit. The . While more time is needed to analyse the bans impacts domestically, it has had rippling effects across global plastic pollution and management. 0000016680 00000 n As a result of ocean plastic pollution, where plastics slowly break down into smaller debris and particles called microplastics. Despite censorship, Wang Jiuliang has managed to reach a wide audience with Plastic China, and have considerable impact. Why won't China remove all caps? Part of the reason she demurred when first speaking to NPR was because of how dearly her family fought for his birth. It now collects its community's plastic trash and turns it into fuel. 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. Chinese lawyer Chen Guangcheng attends a rally to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre June 4, 2019, at the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. That part of the industry is very sensitive, and if you have nothing to do with them, you cant get in, Wang said. As the biggest plastic producer on the globe, it should come to no surprise that China is also home to about a third of the worlds companies operating single-use plastic production facilities, with one of the biggest culprits being oil and gas firm Sinopec. Without a fundamental cultural shift in our societys grievous over-use of plastic, we will see the same mountains of scraps growing in our pristine backyards just like Peng, Kun, and Yi Jie see everyday. 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. How much waste does China produce? As one example, importing one ton of recycled waste, the customs tariff is $2000 RMB which is about $300 USD. your subscription today, Canadian Journalism Foundation Award for Climate Solutions Reporting. It was announced in late 2015 that the program was to end in early 2016. In another one, he explained, in reference to the films title that: The [word] plastic here has two meanings: first it refers to the plastic waste, but at a deeper level it refers to the weakness beneath our surface prosperity;the way plastic surgery only improves appearance, not the reality. She already had two children and had gone through four abortions afterward, to avoid paying the ruinously high "social maintenance fee" demanded from families as penalty when they contravened birth limits. Twenty years later, the volume of. But the country is not ignorant of its environmental impacts, and has moved to take more aggressive strides to combat this exponentially growing problem. The doctors strangled or drowned those babies.". Because many prioritized having a son over a daughter, orphanages experienced a surge in baby girls who were abandoned or put up for adoption. 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. Additionally, China currently tops the list of biggest greenhouse gas emitters though the US overtakes it for emissions per capita. 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. 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. Today, the ongoing secrecy and censorship makes it impossible to know how many died that night. Parents were not penalized for having twins, at least not according to the letter of the law. The legacy of China's one-child rule is still painfully felt by many of those who suffered for having more children. 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. All together, these measures are aligned with the countrys 2060 carbon neutrality targets. 9 U4W6}-+c\y^xu^`88^iY :\`PrAiSvF5f19/L2Jh206X Almost certainly, a proportion will have come from the homes, or more specifically the recycling bins, of Australia. He asks Wang Kun, his boss and the owner of the recycling workshop the Pengs work in, for a raise. 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. 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. "Other doctors would artificially induce labor. 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. 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. 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 . 0000439869 00000 n Since the first protest on Nov. 26th, demonstrations popped up in every area of the country. 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. hide caption. "Our country's leaders did not want us to have children and I didn't know why, but we could not do anything about it," he sighs. Written on 17 January 2019. Its river basin comprises one-fifth of the countrys land area, and supports and houses nearly one-third of the population. 0000021210 00000 n 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. This means that people eating fish have also been consuming plastics. A burning armoured personnel carrier on 4 June 1989, near Tiananmen Square. 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. 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. Now they are stepping away from a plastics lobbying . Plastic pollution has long plagued China, along with severe air pollution. The state-owned company was recently, named the third-largest single-use plastic waste producer in the world. (Liu 2014). 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. The insane volume of sorted scraps are pushed through a machine that turns the plastic into a gross, grey sludge before it is transformed into small grey pellets. Among contributing factors was Plastic China (suliao wangguo, 2016), a documentary directed by Wang Jiuliang. The U.S., Japan and Germany are all at the top of the list when it comes to exporting their used plastic. Its a moving film about the individuals left to deal with the First Worlds trash, and while I enjoy documentaries that throw big, scary facts at me, I believe Wang omitted some objective information for a reason. 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. 0000002606 00000 n 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. 0000009053 00000 n The family obviously lives on very little, and Wang Kun, the breadwinner, has a possibly serious affliction that affects his capacity to work, and remains undiagnosed and untreated, partly because he fears that seeking medical attention could result in high expenses. The whenever is ambiguous, as his 11-year-old daughter Yi Jie tells the camera that hes been promising to send her to school since she was five. 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. to reduce and reuse their own plastic waste. 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. hide caption. , where in 2019, it reportedly churned out about 5.3 million tonnes of plastics. ! Wang recalled. The picture of Chinas gender regime that emerges from Plastic China is one of entrenched patriarchy, at least in the countryside, where boys are still valued more than girls (zhongnan qingn). hide caption. Answer (1 of 7): Hi, from the grandchild of 3 families that would probably be considered bourgeois before 49 Family 1: Paternal Grandfather family, granted this was a quirky case as he was the son of a landlord (the most dominant family in that village for sure. 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). It all started with a mint julep on a hot summer day.
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