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Mulch film in the farmland

Residual film

Ten years after the "plastic ban" was implemented, what is the effect?

The real answer may only be known by the landfill. Documentary director Wang Jiuliang focused his camera on plastic products that have an average usage time of 25 minutes but take at least 200 years to degrade.

But before it became a garbage mountain, it was a plastic bag with a daily usage of 3 billion and readily available; it was a courier bag with a daily circulation of hundreds of millions and traveling all over China; it was a takeaway box that could be piled up into hundreds of mountains a day and indirectly fed more than 20 million mouths; it was also a "white ocean" in the countryside.

Plastics constantly change their forms in high temperatures, covering every individual in the consumer society. In the past 10 years, when the "plastic restriction order" promoted the concept of "environmental protection has a price" to the public, technology has also been constantly chasing consumers' environmental protection needs. A variety of "environmentally friendly plastic bags" have been put on the shelves, and the specific gravity method for screening plastics and chemical means of degradation and regeneration have become hot environmental protection topics.

Few people know whether these projects have really been implemented, and where those "environmentally friendly plastic bags" have gone after being discarded.

Ten years have passed, and plastics wrapped in layers of veils have never been absent. At the beginning of this year, the National Development and Reform Commission invited people from all walks of life on its official website to offer suggestions on the prevention and control of plastic waste pollution.

The efforts to limit plastics are still going on.

Environmental protection or business opportunity?

In Wang Jiuliang's lens, plastic bags are the absolute protagonists of landfills.

On the 50-meter-high garbage mountain, all valuable things have been taken away, only low-quality plastic products are ignored, including an uncountable number of "environmentally friendly plastic bags".

Liu Jianguo, a professor at the Institute of Solid Waste Control and Resource Utilization, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, is not surprised by the fate of these "environmentally friendly plastic bags". "Environmentally friendly plastic bags require strict conditions to degrade, such as temperature, moisture content, specific reactors, etc., and are difficult to degrade in the natural environment." He noticed that the destination of these "environmentally friendly plastic bags" is still mixed with various types of garbage, then compressed and weighed, and finally sent to landfills or incinerators.

The only difference from ordinary plastic bags is that consumers "spend a little more money to meet their environmental protection needs."

His investigation found that a large number of plastic bags marked with "degradable" logos are actually a mixture of degradable materials and non-degradable materials. After leaving the factory, they are priced higher and turned into "environmentally friendly plastic bags", which is a huge business opportunity.

"If a degradable plastic bag is stained with oil, it needs to be cleaned with chemical reagents before entering the degradation process. How much does this process cost?" he said.

Wang Jiuliang is very clear that the current pace of technological progress is very fast. Italy has developed a new technology - to screen plastics in a pile of garbage by crushing, specific gravity and other methods. But these methods are very difficult to promote in China.

"Our garbage is not sorted. What kind of substances are there in the garbage wastewater? How many processes and how much cost do they have to go through?" he said.

Rather than pinning hopes on technology, Wang Jiuliang feels that there are more urgent things to do - for example, rationally examining the extent to which plastics have affected the world around him. The pillars supporting the sunshade of the coffee shop, the small pillars used to separate the traffic on the road, and the plastic trash cans that can be seen everywhere, as far as the eye can see, there are low-quality plastic products that have been reused repeatedly.

Returning to his hometown, he found a rural area almost surrounded by plastic. The mulch film that he had never heard of when he left home as a child has now become the "master" of the farmland.

"Discarded mulch films can be seen everywhere in the fields, beside the ditches and roads, and even on the streets and in the courtyards of farmers. The old mulch films have not been processed, and new ones have been laid again." Jiang Gaoming, a researcher at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, knows very well that the mulch film with a thickness of only 0.004 mm is difficult to completely peel off from the soil. Because it is covered with dust and is light in weight, the recycling value of the mulch film is low, and there is no other way except burning and shelving.

Walking on the farmland, if you turn over the soil, you can easily see with the naked eye that the white mulch film that has been broken into pieces and tangled with soil blocks looks like crops growing in the ground.

He found that the countryside is an almost "unmanaged plastic world". When environmentalists went to the countryside and had dinner at the homes of fellow villagers, disposable plastic tableware was placed on the table. After use, the villagers threw it into the stove. The plastic bowls and cups disappeared quickly and then turned into invisible carcinogens dioxins, which were discharged into the air and then circulated to farmland and rivers with precipitation.

These inferior plastic products eliminated by the city poured into the countryside with the wave of consumption. Since some villages do not have special sanitation workers and garbage recycling systems, plastic products enter rivers or ditches with the help of wind and rain, and remain in rivers, lakes, seas, farmlands and mountains.

Negative value-added industry?

Wang Jiuliang's camera was once aimed at a company in Japan that recycles mineral water bottles. The company has a spacious workshop of several hundred square meters with advanced intelligent and CNC equipment. On the production line, plastic bottles are crushed, cleaned and recycled in turn. In the workshop, Wang Jiuliang could not find sewage or smell pungent odors.

To his surprise, the person in charge of such a "model" enterprise often worries about recycling plastic bottles. Japan's requirements for sewage discharge are too high, and they need to spend a lot of money to meet the standards. "If there is no government subsidy, we will lose money." The person in charge told Wang Jiuliang that the government will subsidize them with 20,000 yen for every ton of used mineral water bottles purchased by the company.

Even so, they are unable to recycle and process more types of plastic products, "the cost of environmental protection is too high."

The camera is aimed at China's garbage treatment plants, but it is a picture that makes Wang Jiuliang sad. He spent 3 years shooting a documentary called "Plastic Kingdom". The documentary tells the industrial chain of China's "foreign garbage" - some people buy garbage from all over the world from ocean-going cargo ships, sort out recyclable plastics, then grind them after rinsing, and then heat and melt them, and then cut them into plastic particles that can be used in the manufacturing industry.

"Japan has to build a factory to deal with a single pollutant, but in China, a small workshop can deal with all kinds of plastic waste from all over the world." He said, "China has the best people in the world in waste sorting, and they have no protective measures or advanced technology." During the filming, those dark faces taught Wang Jiuliang how to distinguish plastic waste from all over the world - feel it, listen to the sound, and then look at the smoke, fire and smell it.

"They are a group of farmers." He said.

A crusher the size of a dining table and a granulator the length of two dining tables can make up a small workshop. Amid the roar of the machine, plastic debris flew in the air. Looking from Wang Jiuliang's lens, plastic debris can be seen in every corner of the screen. If the lens turns again, the sewage may be discharged into the river without being treated.

The difference between workshops is only the size, "You have 10 such machines, and I may only have one."

Outside the camera, in Japan, more and more difficult to handle plastic waste is exported to China. Over the past 10 years, China's imports of foreign garbage have experienced explosive growth, decline, and a complete ban this year.

"Imports are still profitable, but are they really profitable?" Wang Jiuliang couldn't help asking, "What is the cost of the environment?"

During the three years of filming, the camera recorded those visible "costs": garbage and white foam floated in the village water; the sewage after washing plastics flowed into the woods; an old lady accidentally touched a corrosive product while sorting, and her entire finger joint was carbonized; the owner of a small workshop felt that he had a tumor on his waist but refused to see a doctor, "What should I do if the disease is found out? Can I still live? A batch of particles is half a year's tuition for my child."

The filming of the documentary made Wang Jiuliang realize a truth, "Garbage recycling based on environmental friendliness is a negative value-added industry." He gave an example, if environmentally friendly recycling of 1 ton of waste plastics can generate 100 yuan of economic benefits, the cost to be paid is at least 101 yuan. "Otherwise, it is impossible to explain why Japan, which is recognized by the world as the best in garbage sorting and recycling, provides government subsidies to companies for recycling garbage, and it is even more inexplicable why Japanese garbage still appears in the foreign garbage coming to China in "Plastic Kingdom."

Some environmentalists said, "Landfills and incinerators earn money from consuming and processing garbage, rather than the secondary benefits generated by recycling plastic garbage."

In fact, the efficiency of power generation after incineration of these dry and wet mixed garbage is not high. Under the condition of incomplete combustion, toxic substances may be emitted and fly ash and waste residue may be produced. But accordingly, "the cost of recycling plastic products from a large amount of garbage is greater and more exaggerated."

"Environmental protection is often the lesser of several evils." Liu Jianguo said that there is a voice in the current society that expects scientists to find something to completely replace plastic bags. But in fact, from the perspective of the entire life cycle, the pollution caused by the resources consumed by canvas bags and paper bags is not less.

He gave an example, saying that if you make paper bags, you need to go through the process of planting trees, cutting trees, making pulp, and making paper. The cotton planting involved in canvas shopping bags is a high-water and high-energy industry. Not only the amount of pesticides and fertilizers used, but also the cost of land resource occupation, transportation, printing and dyeing, circulation, and landfill incineration after disposal must be considered. "You only see that it is used many times, but you never thought that once it needs to be disposed of, the weight of the cloth bag is dozens of times that of the plastic bag, and the space occupied and the difficulty of disposal are not small."

This scholar who studies solid waste has done an experiment. Every time a canvas bag is used 200 times, its impact on the environment can be better than using a plastic bag once.

"The fundamental problem is not to find a substitute for plastic bags. What we really need to do is to examine our consumption behavior." Jiang Gaoming said.

Mass production, mass consumption, and mass waste

Large tracts of plastic greenhouses and mulch films have occupied farmland. According to data from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the use of mulch films has increased more than 200 times in just 30 years. Jiang Gaoming, who has been studying rural white pollution for more than ten years, found that the butterfly effect that caused the dramatic change in the appearance of farmland had a lot to do with the dining tables of city dwellers.

He said that in order to produce off-season vegetables and fruits, a large number of plastic greenhouses were built in rural areas. The "white ocean" mulch films on cultivated land are intended to improve soil temperature and humidity, extend the production season of crops with higher economic value, and ultimately increase their yields.

After the mulch films were laid, the yield did increase. But at the same time, the mulch films are difficult to peel off from the soil after use. They stay in the soil for a long time, destroying the soil structure, and organisms lose their activity space. Nematodes and earthworms leave one by one, and the land eventually becomes compacted.

Jiang Gaoming noticed that in order to solve this problem, many people even adopted the method of "film in film", covering the greenhouse with a layer of film and laying another layer on the ground to prevent water loss, but such a sealed environment will suffocate the microorganisms in the soil alive, and eventually evolve into a fragile ecosystem.

He saw one sad face after another. Some farmers encountered problems such as crop rot and disease. Some cattle and sheep ate peanut vines covered by mulch film and were suffocated to death. Jiang Gaoming asked people to turn over the land and clearly saw that the mulch film was wrapped around the peanut vines, as if it was parasitic on the vines. They took the soil back to the laboratory for inspection and even found the mulch film left over from 30 years ago. "It has become a tiny piece of plastic that is invisible to the naked eye, but it has not disappeared."

Most of the mulch films that were not handled in time were burned, and the harmful substances such as hexachlorobenzene, dioxins, and polychlorinated biphenyls produced by them entered the air.

And where did those crops that were infected with diseases and used excessive fertilizers and pesticides go? Jiang Gaoming said, "In the end, they all ended up on the tables of city dwellers." He thought it was ironic that endless consumer demand controlled the flow and change of the market, but was eventually bitten back by it. He once discussed with farmers to simply remove the reflective film that was spread all over the orchard and use less to reduce pollution and waste. But the other party rejected this suggestion for a simple reason - without the reflective film, the apples would be unevenly colored and look bad, and no one would buy them. "Apples are for eating, not for looking at," said Jiang Gaoming. The scholar couldn't help but reflect, "Do we really have such a big consumer demand?" He disliked the packaging model of a piece of plastic paper for a piece of candy, publicly criticized the publishing industry for putting plastic film on books, and opposed hotels providing disposable plastic toiletries, "How much waste will this cause?" Liu Jianguo summed it up in 12 words: "Mass production, mass consumption, and mass waste."

Looking out from the office building of the School of Environment at Tsinghua University, dense housing and office buildings are constantly compressing the space of the city. Plastic bags, construction waste, electronic waste, scrap steel, tires, glass, and even shared bicycles... Liu Jianguo feels that the economic growth rate is too fast, the pace of life is accelerating, people's consumption patterns are changing, demand is stimulated, and the fast market is born. Shared bicycles were still "angels" that solved the last kilometer problem a year or two ago, but in the blink of an eye, they have become garbage mountains in residential areas and parking lots.

"Many people don't think, they just think plastic bags are a big problem, so they eat takeaways packaged in plastic boxes while cursing the evil of plastic. If you really think about it, you will find that there are problems everywhere." The scholar sighed.

The abandoned construction waste landfill after large-scale demolition and construction was also captured by Wang Jiuliang's camera. He saw densely packed people in a landfill nearly two kilometers wide. At the peak, more than 2,000 people shuttled among various waste pipes, wires, plastics, steel bars, and bricks, carrying things and running to the shacks next to the landfill. That was their temporary residence, and also the temporary residence of waste materials. Cranes and trucks would soon take away these materials and send them to the next construction site or factory.

In the bustling atmosphere, Wang Jiuliang stood in the distance, feeling mixed emotions.

While filming "Plastic Kingdom", the young documentary director noticed a set of data. From the large-scale import of foreign garbage in 1995 to around 2008, the entire foreign garbage recycling industry was reflected in a perfect upward curve in economic value. The garbage that costs $9 per ton in the United States can be sold to small workshops for thousands of yuan after crossing the ocean to China. After processing, the price of one ton of plastic particles is even close to five figures, and the price is "almost catching up with the raw materials."

"I thought people could be as low as dust, but I didn't expect to be as low as garbage." At a screening event, a university teacher cried after watching the film.

We need to make companies feel the pain, and we need to make the public feel the pain

Many times, Wang Jiuliang felt that he was also swept away by the wave of consumerism. He poked the plastic cup in his hand and asked, "If plastic cups are not provided, can we not drink beverages?"

Wang Jiuliang said that the more plastics are produced, the more plastic waste will appear in the end. The process of continuous reuse will only make the performance of plastics continue to decrease, and it will eventually become truly non-recyclable plastic waste. The only way to avoid environmental pollution caused by plastic waste is to reduce its use.

In his opinion, the current scope of the "plastic restriction order" is too narrow, and "it should cover more industries." The means need to be regulated by the government. "The companies that produce mineral water bottles have gained profits, should they bear the cost of environmental protection? The people enjoy the convenience of plastic bottles, should they also pay for it? Should the packaging industry be reformed? Should supermarkets pay taxes for selling plastic bags?"

"The companies should feel the pain, and the people should feel the pain." He said.

Liu Jianguo believes that the greatest value of the "plastic restriction order" in the past 10 years is not to limit the production of ultra-thin plastic bags, but that it has sent a signal to society that "resources have a price, and using resources requires costs" by charging for plastic bags.

However, "If the price of plastic lunch boxes really rises from 50 cents to 5 yuan one day, will consumers be willing to pay for it? If one day, recyclable lunch boxes are really made of recycled waste, will people be willing to use them?" He said that it is impossible to change the situation all at once with rising costs and market fluctuations.

The scholar believes that plastics need to be justified at the moment. "Materials did not fall from the sky. Plastics are not evil. They are made by humans."

"Plastics should not be demonized, and the evil of plastics should not be confused with the problem of poor management." He said, "Can we prevent plastics from entering water bodies? Prevent it from entering farmland? Poor management of any material will become a problem, not just plastics."

"Improving the technology and management level of the entire recycling and processing system, and promoting garbage classification, this is something that can be done in a practical way." Liu Jianguo believes that the breakthrough point is the countryside. "We must create something out of nothing and establish a basic recycling and processing system as soon as possible, even if it is a simple landfill."

If we can do a good job of sorting garbage to reduce the difficulty of processing, then it is possible to establish a derivative plastic sorting transfer center, "at least it will be more valuable than burning it directly."

But in Jiang Gaoming's view, there are more things that can be tried at the moment.

He once heard that in Gansu, where water is scarce, an agronomist helped local farmers develop a double-layer mulch film. Two layers of mulch film were laid on the land to help the dry land lock in moisture so that more corn could be grown. This project won the topic, and in the end "all parties were satisfied" and "everyone was happy".

Jiang Gaoming was not happy at all, "There is a problem with the technology, and you want to develop another technology to solve it. In fact, artificially creating an environment with the best temperature and humidity to grow corn is against the laws of nature." He said, "The source is wrong."

Previously, Spanish scientists found that 100 wax moths degraded 92 mg of polyethylene in 12 hours. After being compiled by the media, this insect became a "savior insect" with the ability to digest plastic. When the news came out, Jiang Gaoming didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Humans produce hundreds of thousands of tons of polyethylene every day, and it is unknown when insects will eat it. More importantly, the idea of letting insects eat things that are not originally in nature is still "off track".

He always thinks that maybe the natural conditions in some parts of Gansu are not suitable for growing corn. Can we develop and grow Chinese herbal medicine? Can we find a way to promote ecological agriculture?

Jiang Gaoming knows very well that it is the consumers who can really make all these changes happen. "The money in the hands of urban consumers is the best vote. Wherever you vote, there will be an industry." He said.

What should we do? Be optimistic!

Before filming "Plastic Kingdom" and "Garbage Siege", Wang Jiuliang was a professional student at the Communication University of China. At that time, he wanted to make an exhibition called "Supermarket" with some "stream of consciousness". "A conceptual thing, the shelves are not filled with new products, but empty milk cartons, plastic buckets of ice cream, etc., so that garbage fills the shelves."

After the idea came up, he began to carry the machine to large and small garbage dumps. But there, he found something more important than art. The severity of the plastic waste problem far exceeded the imagination of this young man, "there are more urgent things that need you to solve."

In the face of reality, metaphysical conceptual art came to fruition and eventually became a documentary project. He also abandoned the implicit expression of his views and chose to point directly to the problem.

During the post-production of "Plastic Kingdom", he kept thinking: On the surface, these industries may be the mainstay in the local area and support countless rural families. But when the acquisition of individual interests is based on the interests of others, this becomes a matter of right and wrong. "It is necessary to cut off this industry. We need to see more people affected. Who will protect their interests and who will speak out?"

He will never forget an old man he met during the filming. Because of the handling of "foreign garbage", the water source of the village where the filming was conducted was polluted, and nearby villagers had to walk a long way to buy water. One day, Wang Jiuliang met a hunchbacked old lady at the place where he bought water. The vendor told the old woman that a bucket of water cost 4 yuan. The old lady said embarrassedly, "4 yuan, can I owe it first?"

Since January this year, the country has begun to completely ban the import of 24 kinds of "foreign garbage" from abroad, cutting off this industry that has been lingering for more than 20 years. Wang Jiuliang saw hope in this. He thought that if a garbage tax is really levied and reforms are promoted from top to bottom, perhaps hope is ahead.

Jiang Gaoming thinks this is not a difficult task. He remembers that in the past, the state-level rectification of gutter oil and flour whitening agents affected many people's cakes, but they were finally implemented.

This time, the hard bone became plastic products.

"The Queen of England can reflect on herself and require the ban of plastic straws and plastic bottles in the royal industry. Why can't we do the same?" he said.

At the beginning of this year, the UK promised the public that the British government will implement a 25-year plan to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste pollution by 2042. However, this statement failed to gain more support from ordinary people. Many people left messages on social platforms, "The government set the time too late, 2042 is too late, and action should be taken now."

The plastic problem has become a world-class problem. Bangladesh once suffered a catastrophic flood, and people were surprised to find that plastic bags were the primary cause of drainage system blockage. Uncountable blue-footed boobies are also losing their homes, and plastic garbage has become the new owner of the beach of Lobos Terra Island in Peru. Data shows that these plastic garbage causes the death of hundreds of thousands of marine animals every year.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said, "One out of every three fish caught in the English Channel contains plastic fragments." Antarctica has also not escaped the disaster of plastic pollution. At the beginning of this year, scientists discovered that invisible plastic particles appeared in the surface water of Antarctica, and the content was even higher than the average level in the ocean.

Bangladesh became the first country in the world to implement a plastic bag ban in 2002. The law stipulates that those who import or sell plastic bags can be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison, and those who distribute plastic bags can be sentenced to 6 months in prison. Today, supermarkets in this country only sell cloth and paper bags.

Wang Jiuliang took the film to tour around the world, and many young viewers couldn't help asking Wang Jiuliang after watching it: "What should we do?"

He didn't plan to answer these questions. Wang Jiuliang hoped that these young people who care about environmental protection would find the answers themselves.

Some young people also asked him if he was particularly pessimistic after shooting garbage for so long. Wang Jiuliang smiled, "When you still insist on doing this, it means that the heart that wants to change has not changed. Be optimistic. Even if we can't do it, there are still children."

In recent years, he was surprised that there have been many groups in the private sector that pay attention to garbage recycling. They have popped up like stars on the map, looking for the possibility of solving the problem.

In Wuxi, a group of doctors and college students are concerned about the recycling of medical waste such as used syringes. They went to all the major hospitals in Wuxi and persuaded them to accept their proposal - to distribute a special sharps box to every patient who needs to use a syringe at home. This box is used to place the used syringes. After use, the patient can return it to the recycling station set up by the hospital, thus avoiding the syringes being thrown directly into the trash. Later, they went all the way to hospitals in Suzhou and Shanghai.

This cause is still being promoted.

The person in charge of the green packaging project of JD Logistics also admitted that the amount of plastic express bags is very large, and disposable packaging has a great cost advantage. At present, it still occupies the mainstream in the express delivery industry. "It is difficult to promote the recycling of recycled express packaging at the end of the community. The packaging recycling system and social infrastructure are not sound, and there is a lack of laws and regulations to support recycling companies to recycle."

At present, JD Logistics is promoting the use of recycled express boxes - Qingliu boxes, which are made of PP materials and can be recycled and reused many times. New boxes can be made after damage, which does not harm the environment and can replace disposable cartons. They hope to "coordinate resources from all aspects of society, form a more complete industrial chain, and fully implement green recycling packaging."

Liu Jianguo said that many of China's problems, including the problem of plastic bags, are concentrated on ultra-high-speed economic development. Many developed countries have taken hundreds of years to gradually solve these problems, while China needs to solve them in 20 years or even less. He hopes that the public can give more support and understanding, and at the same time, they can start from themselves, look at their consumption behavior more comprehensively and rationally, and reflect on their consumption needs.

"In fact, it's just that mankind has taken a detour." Jiang Gaoming said that it is not terrible to have problems in the development process, as long as they are corrected in time. He even hopes that the use, abuse, restrictions, reflections and future events of plastic bags can be recorded and written into textbooks, becoming a permanent mirror in history.

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