Response to “Bag It” and reading materials–Kenneth

Response to “Bag It”:

Before watching this documentary, I just have a rough image of sustainability. One thing the documentary noticed is the ban on plastic bag around the world. I experience the ban on the plastic bag in China in 2008 but it didn’t last long. What the Chinese government eventually did is to place a fee on plastic bag everywhere–you need it and you have to pay for it. But in my opinion,  this is not the best solution for plastic management. We consume a crazy number amount of plastic product per hour/ year per person according to the data shown in the documentary, which cause incredible pollution. We use plastic bags for the convenience of several hours at the expense of the environment for hundreds of years. The management of plastic material is a really big issue.

The interesting points that I find out from “Bag It”:

• Where plastic bags go? — Go away? Where is away?– There is no away. Plastic bags are everywhere.
• Making one plastic bottle needs a quarter bottle of gasoline. If we won’t take action to solve the plastic recycle, we would waste more resources and cause more pollution
• Only a small part of the plastic product can be recycled effectively. Most plastic trash goes landfill or buried. For now, the recycling rate is quite low.
• Plastic waste mostly goes to Asia, especially China.
• The pollution caused by the plastic product is more serious than our imagination: plastic bags kill animals and break the balance of the ecosystem.
• The plastic product also damage human health

Take away:

• We should reduce the consumption of plastic products and control what we have made to the environment.
• Teaching consumer “what is a good product” is important.

Response to Vice video and reading material:

In the past decade, China plays the role of “trash collector” around the world. As the reading material says, “In 2016, China imported two-thirds of the world’s plastic waste. So when China stopped buying the world’s discarded plastics, it threw markets into turmoil. But it also created opportunity“. I am thinking about why China decides to stop doing the trash business. The first thing come to my mind is that the amount of plastic trash may exceed the capacity of recycling waste in China. In addition, China may not be able to recycle at an effective rate, which means that the trash business is keeping the polluting environment in China. It is reasonable for China to stop importing plastic waste. Other Asian countries like Indonesia and India have less capacity to take over the business of China. It is telling that the globe is facing a serious issue of solving plastic waste. However, as I think, it is not a bad thing because the action of China will be the trigger other developed countries who used to ship their trash to China to set up or refine their recycling institution and system. Instead of keeping relying on China, it is better for all the countries on the earth to solve plastic waste together.