Plastic China

Plastic China, a 2016 documentary film, explores the harsh realities of plastic waste processing and recycling industries in China while shedding light on compelling human stories nestled within this industry. Directed by Jiuliang Wang, a renowned Chinese documentary filmmaker, Plastic China is an intimate and affecting portrait of those who live at the fringe of global capitalist realities, a far-reaching exploration of the ruthless broader continuum of consumption and waste.

The film primarily unfolds in an obscure region of Shandong, a province in Northern China, known for housing numerous clandestine waste plants. Here, the viewers are introduced to the world of waste plastic imported from multiple developed countries in the Western world. The film delicately unfolds the curious, often harrowing echelons of an industry born out of economic need and global consumerism intricacies.

Plastic China, however, goes beyond the exploration of plastic waste reprocessing to present us with the lives of two families struggling to eke out an existence amidst enormous heaps of global waste. It's through their lives we come to understand the human cost of our throwaway culture. The complexity and rigor of their lives offer a jarring contrast to the abundance and ease most of us are blessed with.

The primary focus is Yi Jie, an eleven-year-old girl whose parents work round the clock picking out and cleaning waste to sell to larger factories for further processing. She herself partakes in this laborious and hazardous-for-health process instead of going to school as per her age. The girl’s exacerbated innocence and dreams of a better life in this dystopian setting tug at your heartstrings and make you critically reevaluate your own consumption practices and the wider impact it causes.

Although the pitiful conditions are heart-wrenching, the filmmakers have restrained from scripting a didactic narrative. Instead, they have allowed the grim reality to unfurl itself through the retinas of the viewers. The camera quietly observes, capturing moments where worlds outside the plastic-strewn landscape peep through—children at play, family reconnections, dreams articulated, and aspirations thwarted. Through well-composed shots, we become an intimate part of this bleak world.

The other family portrayed in the film is headed by Kun, who owns the recycling workshop. While seemingly better off than Yi Jie’s family, Kun shares similar worries and uncertainties about his children’s future largely defined by an inhospitable industry. Kun's struggle to improve his family's life, despite his complicity in the exploitative system, further complicates the narrative, defying any simplistic villain-victim binary.

An undercurrent in the film is the environmental issues exacerbated by indiscriminate disposal and reprocessing of plastic wastes. It brings into sharp focus China's role as a global dump yard for waste as much as developed West’s free-for-all dumping practices. The tension between economic advancement and environmental implications are well-depicted in the film without ever turning to an environmental polemic.

Plastic China thus strikes a delicate balance between the macroeconomic view of global waste management and microcosmic human stories within it. Along with the tangible narratives of human struggle, the film also subtly presents an introspective space for viewers to grapple with the unseen socio-economic and environmental repercussions of contemporary consumerist practices.

Visually striking with its stark landscapes strewn with mountains of waste, coupled with a poignant narrative of human aspirations and struggles, Plastic China offers a grim wake-up call for urgent changes in our global practices around plastic waste and consumption. It's a thought-provoking documentary that, while personal and immediate in its depiction of the human cost, also raises universal questions about environmental exploitation, social inequality, and our collective responsibility towards managing an ever-growing problem that the current throwaway culture spurs. It's a must-watch focused not just on the exploitation and degradation inherent to the recycling industry, but also on the resilience and quiet dignity of its most vulnerable participants.