Plastic China: Green Drinks November Film Screening

Plastic China, Green Initiatives' 83rd Film Screening, is a close-up view of the plastic waste generated in China and the recycler’s dilemma of health, poverty and pollution.

We will have two guests at the event, Elaine Zheng and Heather Kaye, briefly sharing their work with the audience.

Film screening will be followed by a short discussion and launch of our new impact project, Plastics Are Forever. Visit this link for the launch press release.

Film Synopsis

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 home town.

Going to school is all Yi-Jie is longing for. And the ambitious boss of the workshop Kun, who works so hard for trying to give his family a better life. Through the story of these two families, the film explores how these wastes recycled by the bare hands of families, and discovers their dilemma and choices of suffering irreversible damages on life just to make a living. It also observes that the world is flat and issues don't go away by changing time and location - we're all in this together.

About the Guests

Elaine Zheng, Environment Education Specialist, Rendu
Background: Elaine serves as an overseas education consultant and also works for Shanghai Rendu Ocean NPO Development Center as the environmental education specialist. Rendu has been the only coordinator in mainland China for International Coastal Cleanup since 2007 that organizes coastal cleanup campaigns and other education programs to raise public environmental awareness.

Heather Kaye, Co-founder, Finch Designs
Background: Heather and her co-founder Itee Soni established FINCH Designs in 2010 with the goal of producing sustainable swimwear with as little environmental waste as possible. FINCH exclusively uses Repreve™ plastic, a textile material made from recycled PET bottles, to produce swimsuits. Heather has an extensive background in the fashion industry and her 12 years in Asia have been a backstage tour of the fashion industry. She is originally from San Diego, California.
Heather is currently assisting Green Initiatives to initiate a Shanghai school curriculum focused on raising awareness on plastic consumption, with the focus being on convincing students and professionals to refuse disposable, single-use plastic items in everyday transactions.

Green Initiatives believes that the problem of plastics concerns all of us, and it is not sufficient to look to or blame the government or industry. Change needs to start with us and we need to reduce our own consumption of plastic products and packaging.

The event aims to take a constructive look at the problem and the potential solutions, starting with changing individual behavior.

We are thankful to Novalis Flooring and NYU Shanghai for supporting us in organizing this event.