Reducing Refuse: China's battle against plastic waste

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"Beat Plastic Pollution", the theme for World Environment Day 2018, is a call to action for people to come together to combat one of the great environmental challenges of our time - plastic pollution. Exactly ten years ago, China enacted its "Plastic Ban" regulation to minimize the use. But how is the battle going today? Reporter Liu Xinqing has more.

Everywhere we go, we see plastics. It's one of the greatest inventions, making life more convenient but it's also a double edge sword, one of the thorniest issues to solve.

According to leading global environmental authority UN Environment, 1 million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute around the world, and every year we use up to 5 trillion disposable plastic bags.

PEI WANJUN ZHENGZHOU RESIDENT "It's a serious problem. A lot of the restaurants, logistics companies and fast-food suppliers use plastics, and it's causing a big environmental problem."

GUO WEI ZHENGZHOU RESIDENT "Plastic bags are readily available when you go shopping in the supermarket or bring back leftovers from restaurants. Plastic packages seem indispensable in our lives."

With a population of more than 1.3 billion people, China is a big plastic producer and consumer of plastic products, meaning its a huge generator of plastic waste.

GUO CHUNXIA, DEPUTY DIRECTOR HENAN SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT CENTER "We have gradually realized the problem of plastics, especially in recent years, with the increase in use of plastic products in our daily lives, its harmful impact on the environment and on humans grows more prominent."

But many still don't realize the threat of plastic pollution as they only see the plastic products they use, but seldom see places like this, a symbol of the modern problem.

LIU XINQING ZHENGZHOU, HENAN "This is one of thousands of landfill sites scattered around China's cities. Most of the plastics used in our daily lives end up being buried in places like this. Research shows that each plastic bag is only used for 25 minutes, but takes around 200 years to fully degrade."

That is only in theory, and a substantial part of low quality plastics can never be degraded at all. Plastic pollution is presenting a daunting challenge for the whole world, and solving the problem has become a pressing issue.

GUO CHUNXIA DEPUTY DIRECTOR HENAN SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT CENTER "In terms of top design, we need to come up with alternative products and technologies with related policies. That's what we call the best technology plus the best system, which refers to a combination of both incentives for the good practice and punishments for using polluting plastics."

Plastics are so widely used in everyday life that the solution for this problem rests with every one of us. And indeed, there are many things we can do.

WANG HAO ZHENGZHOU RESIDENT "The public should use environmentally-friendly bags more often and avoid using disposable plastics."

GUO CHUNXIA DEPUTY DIRECTOR HENAN SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT CENTER "The key to solving this problem is public awareness and personal habits. We need to help ordinary citizens to realize that the plastics they use are harmful to themselves, their children and the entire environment."

If you can't reuse it, just refuse it! It's a simple choice, but makes all the difference. Liu Xinqing, CGTN, Zhengzhou, Henan Province.