tv Made in Germany Deutsche Welle August 7, 2019 1:30pm-2:01pm CEST
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come quoting my father while. i was a student because i wanted to build a life for myself like these totally but suddenly life became knowledge. providing insights global news that matters d.w. made for mines. this is one of the mountains of waste left by all of us back in the 1950 s. when mass production of plastic took off an annual 1500000 tonnes were produced worldwide now it's 350000000 tons of classic that are produced in just one year plastic is everywhere and most of it is single use packaging that is
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discarded it's right away and far too often ends up in the embodiment planets plastic that's what we want to look at today here made in germany how to get our addiction to plastic under control so where to put it all the landfills a full is citing capacity is lagging behind so why not send it abroad germany exports around a 1000000 tons of plastic waste every year but the main destination china is no longer willing to take in the rubbish so it goes to other countries that often end up dumping all burning it. plastics plastic and more plastic and the stocks are only getting higher recycling companies in germany have been pushed to their limits in recent years. because we didn't have enough processing capacity in germany the volumes involved
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and the production costs were just too high for huge quantities of plastic waste are shipped abroad as a result around half of the world's plastic waste used to be sent to china to be processed there in 2018 china stopped accepting as other countries have filled the gap. the main destinations for germany's plastic waste are now in malaysia $132000.00 tons a year followed by india has around $76000.00 and then indonesia in the 3rd place at more than $64.00 sides and followed by vietnam at nearly 57000 tons. of size of mines but in malaysia the trash piles up on dumps like this they don't recycle here at all the trash d.k. use polluting the soil and groundwater.
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if you have a little rummage around here you'll see a lot of it comes from germany from other european countries too and the us but there's a lot from germany this is an old capri sun is on a. there's a mix of household rubbish and use packaging. the volume is starting to overwhelm many of the importers because there aren't enough plastic recycling plants environmentalist group greenpeace discovered 45 legal and 5 illegal landfills in one malaysian region alone with garbage from more than 19 countries. the biggest export there is the us around 16 percent of their plastic waste get sent abroad. japan exports more than 15 percent germany more than 12 per cent and the u.k. more than 9 per cent.
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recycling old plastic trash into new plastic is a complex and costly process it has to be separated cleaned and source it exports are only legal if the country they're being sent to can process them but asian countries are often found ways that's barely recyclable. the environmental and health impacts have led many countries to limit imports or ban them completely but waste still get sent there illegally cambodia recently received 83 containers with a ranch 1600 tons of banned plastic waste from the u.s. and canada officially declared as recyclable materials cambodia plans to send them back. home in. germany conducts regular checks to prevent these kinds of illegal exports environmental authorities here in the port of hamburg want to determine exactly what in the cargo it's not always clear cut. what can and cannot be recycled.
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you see these images of them being sorted by hand made into pellets and they do things like outdoor clothing. but not all plastic waste is as pure as it should be manufacturers aren't careful and or they just want to make some fast cash those are the criminals. done between them. some companies are already working on alternatives to exploiting plastics and ship maker every factory company at an environmental institute have joined forces to build a recycling ship they were anchor in 7 african countries and by plastic waste from the collectors on land to be recycled right there on board the vessel. lots of people make a living from selling garbage like here in sierra leone they could make 5 times
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more money by selling it to the recycling ship on one condition the plastic is pre-selected interesting go variety seen around $64000.00 tons of plastic waste could be recycled here every year. because of and of course on lot of them we need a big plant to process plastics in a profitable way and none of these countries has the means to build one that big we think we'll be able to buy our own $10000000.00 euros worth of plastic every year as if it's the middle of the m culture and when you think it takes $10000.00 euros of revenue to create a full time job in these countries then we could create 1000 jobs in the region know your mission. building the resources to process plastic waste where it's created could help the world to start breaking down its magnitude of this.
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but breaking down plastic is also part of the problem goes with plastic packaging disintegrates in the environment through the force of waves of the ocean or chemical processes like all sedation in the air it creates an additional problem the plastic actually never fully decomposes it just breaks down into smaller and smaller particles called micro plastics we see them but at some stage they get small enough to be absorbed by animals getting into our food and even into the air we breathe have a look it's actually quite frightening. to know that you live in a world full of plastic. it's in the water you drink and even the air you breathe and the food you eat is full of tiny plastic particles. every week you ingest up to 5 grams of micro plastics about the equivalent of a credit card. that much of that will remain in your body with as yet unknown
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effect on your health. a 3rd of all the plastic produced goes into the packaging that you buy. if you're a german you generate an average 38 kilograms of waste from plastic packaging every year that's more than a european average of 24 kilograms and no matter where you live the richer you are the more ways to generate if you buy things online you will create even more plastic waste. chances are you'll use half of your plastic products only once and then discard them. but the plastic will stick around you and your environment for the most part not just for your lifespan but for centuries. for many years we've been told that it's up to us to stop the flood of plastic waste reduce reuse recycle that is what we are told we should be doing but how
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feasible is it and is it enough reusable bottles and biodegradable bags may not be as good as we think they are our reports of took a long hard look at our own consumption of plastic and found out it's not easy being green. this is the amount of plastic waste my flat to produce in one day and one day i mean refined people put still we all know we have to reduce plastic waste for how do we actually do it. well in the main meitner the mantra reduce reuse recycle.
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which makes them quite expensive. these cost me $0.50 per piece the plastic ones are much cheaper less than 10 percent. so-called bioplastics only make up less than one percent of the market and bioplastics can only be composted on the very specific conditions not in your private compost heaps and often not an industrial
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ones either. so plastic alternatives still have a long way to go i know nobody can avoid using trash bags entirely but trying to avoid single use plastic and packaging especially is a good start so the 2nd thing to do is really use. you know use and reuse the bag the fancy water bottle and cement all straw just getting as in there are one this is a chopstick. there is a whole industry cropping up around these trendy reusable products lees can cost up to $50.00 euros but using these doesn't make you a saint because producing these fancy things also costs a lot of energy like a cotton bag you might have to reuse a new one hundreds of times to stay below the environmental impact of a single use plastic bag so go with what you already own even if it's not the
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world's most stylish thing and if you really need something maybe just go buy it secondhand that way it also gets reuse number 3 recycle. ok so even hardened environmentalist can live entirely without plastic waste i know i can but that's ok because all plastic waste gets recycled well you know in germany these p.t.v. although they can be recycled but a lot of these plastic cards it's quite confusing the german government says we recycle less than half of the. plastic some critics estimate it's less than the fish companies recycle things are that easy to recycle and make the money black plastics for example can't be sorted by machines so they don't get recycled packages made out of a combination of plastics are also hard to recycle the same goes for p.t. trays a lot of this gets burnt to produce energy all get shipped overseas. so separating
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your trash diligently sadly doesn't automatically mean avoiding plastic waste but before anybody says what's the point of all this there are a few things that everybody can do if they want to reduce their plastic ways try to avoid single use plastic as much as they can especially in the hard to recycle stuff single use items out of other materials some like this or paper are better than plastic but some of those environmentally friendly as they claim to be and use and reuse what you've got here even this plastic bag until it falls apart remember it takes a long time to do so. q. consumption is one part of the story obviously production is another when plastic was invented it was praised as a wonder material extremely useful cheap and easy to manufacture
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a huge industry developed making a lot of money producing plastic packaging and bottles there are some facts and figures. plastic is versa town it can be elastic or hard transparent or opaque and take on virtually any shape. it's an amazing material that has become indispensable in medicine electronics construction and even mobility. since the 1950 s. production has skyrocketed plastic has meant huge profits for industry because it's cheap and easily disposable except it isn't greenpeace says coca-cola pepsi and nestle are the world's largest producers of plastic trash coca-cola sells 88000000000 plastic bottles here if you lined them all up they'd span the equator 600 times. and plastic production continues to grow today industry has
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produced more than 8000000000 tons of plastic by 2050 that total is expected to reach 12000000000 tons. incredible numbers that we won't be able to do without plastic anytime soon but the image of the plastic producers has definitely been tarnished now it seems the industry has begun a rethink that's all well and good but is best still time to turn things around my colleague martin who spoke to an executive for sponsible for sustainability at a major german plastics manufacturer about the industry's efforts to clean up its act. recurring the stuff we can't do without plastic almost every soda maggio every blade on a wind turbine it contains plastic. when herrick german plastics manufacturer a spinoff aspire last year they also mounted to 14000000000 euros so business is
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good but the plastic sector has a waste problem and an image problem. christiane has left the company's head of global sustainability is supposed to find solutions to both of them divest very recently joined forces with competitors to form an alliance to end plastic waste. is the 1st industry's poor image a problem for you. that cover stroke we want to tackle this as part of a consortium we can't solve it on our own. alliance to end plastic waste is an industry wide attempt to solve the problem of plastic pollution. we have to ensure that plastics that are too valuable to end up in the environment can again become valuable resources for industry at the end of their life cycle. but if they are valuable resources why they've been thrown away isn't it a bit late for this alliance founded in january 29th. well to prevent them from being discarded you have to have
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a functioning waste collection sorting and recovery system. and the job of the chemicals industry is to make sure there are technologies that can turn these plastics into raw materials for industry. restaurants plastics generally end up in durable goods. these include cars insulation for buildings and consumer goods. a major line of business is polyurethane foam used in shoes for example and mattress is. one of our 2 main product lines polycarbonate and polyurethanes. this is not easily recyclable. actually recycled mechanically too but of course not the same amount as we produced so we don't have a circular economy for this product yet. you disliking germany's recycling rate
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is below 30 percent there's some dispute over how much is that far too little but what it when it's on the golf course if we want to achieve a circular economy target has to be 100 percent but don't underestimate the complexity of this problem we want to recover the plastics in this pure reform as possible. past it recovery is another manufacturers responsibility shouldn't they use less mix plastic and incorporate more pure great plastics. challenge of course the products should be constructed to be more easily recycled and separated like that's part of the whole package of measures that we need to implement. an insight that's come rather late there's already so much plastic waste in the environment and accordingly pressure on the industry as a plastic has a major image problem. yes we want to improve that image. it's all about
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recovering the plastics after use. that's a joint task force society policy makers and. we will do it on this one will him because he went over decades it's a complex process. well what else can be done a loss on a small scale all of the well the rising numbers of local initiatives to reduce plastic waste the southern german town of froebel for example has been cutting down on single use coffee cups by introducing a deposit scheme on reusable cups to go in over 100 cafes they can be reused up to 400 times in san fernando in the philippines plastic bags having burned out rights and the recycling rate has jumped from 12 percent of waste to rather astonishing 80 percent and in the city of misurata in southwestern india officials are championing the cause of sending 0 waste to landfills not only that recycling
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waste is creating jobs that. the city of my soul is on a mission. at the break of dawn every day an army of civic workers goes all out to reclaim their city status as the cleanest city in the country. but then i got my cereal was given the cleanest city award by the government 2 years in a row and then we came 3rd in 27th and the next year we were a. whole administration with all these workers all of us are trying very hard to get back to number one on account of about the mop we have now. for a city traditionally committed to hygiene the swat sort of action or annual trendiness index is a big deal. it's
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a survey that ranks indian cities according to their level of sanitation and the quality and scope of their facilities for waste management. we want our my subaru to be just as clean as the developed countries of the world. my pseudos model of cleanliness goes beyond efficient collection of garbage. combining traditional methods of segregation with modern processing plants the city has been pushing for 0 waste to be sent to landfills. one thing's for sure it has to be dealt with at every level right trauma many my crew
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of a small kitchen. right up to a hotel generating to a wedding hall or a banquet hall this is. and it in ways to industrial campus to an office area everyone has to attempt to deal with it to the maximum possible extent in them around them and only send out what they've gone deal with for cities to manage. my soup produces about $400.00 tons of waste every day 50 percent of it is treated at compost plants while a quarter is processed at recycling units. the national figures however aren't quite as impressive. india produces about $62000000.00 tons of waste every year it's one of the largest generators of waste in the world while 82 percent of it is collected only a quarter gets treated. most of the wasted variably ends up in landfills and
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open dumpsites. 2 decades ago the local government here decided to set up a 0 waste management plant in the north of my soon. to come back up on waste management plant was going to set the stage for the rest of the city. they always manage when does late nor waste should go to the client on line for the incineration bank so we are completely money thing they've established that is even from a different water my specific operation. as you can see i do we have bought 26 very nice collection segregation here and we have also had this we gave our venice to the public. about 40 civic workers are
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employed at the combat compact plant they all have the title of nagar bundles. which translates as friends of the city. developing a detailed waste segregation model has also created an opportunity for formal employment for these workers. most of them used to be part of a large network of informal rag pickers. the city corporation is now trying to bring more and more of them into the fold. they have provided i don't regard as my last checkup benefits particularly gardy yes i and. it is like a health insurance or disputed me given by doug only. today to plug cells 95 percent of it's recycled waste back into the city to local entrepreneurs like she's done jenny rajshekhar. recycling of plastic is done
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here that is we have kind of i think plastic that into our and we can use this into stationary engines so after this weekend we have been to come up with the new projects like making the markets with the using another catalyst and making up off the banks which is another kind of recycling. the waste is not to be used it is treated as a resource so we should make use of segregation and we have to convert to the waste into the property. my suit who may or may not receive the cleanest city award once again. but it's well on its way to achieving so much more and it's and has to build a sustainable future. so there's hope and that's it for today from the maid see tell us your ideas on how to help rid our planet of all that plastic on our facebook and twitter shop start washing see you next time stay
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where i come from we had to fight for a free press and was born and raised in a military dictatorship with just one to his shadow and a few in his favorites one official information as a journalist i have worked all the streets of many cancers and their problems are almost the same color to social inequality a lack of the freedom of the friends and corruption who can afford to stay silent when it comes to the fans of the human scene or microphones who have decided to put their trust in us. name is jenny harrison i work at the.
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earth home to millions of species a home worth saving. google ideas tell stories of creative people and innovative projects around the world ideas that protect the climate boost green energy solutions and reforestation. using interactive content to inspire people to take action a little audience the series of global 3000 on t.w. and online. i was issued when i arrived here i slept with 6 people in a room in there and it was hard. i even got white hair and. learning the gemini language and now a lot of this gets me and they go to nikki to interact with the say you want to do their story in the months perforating and reliable information for margaret.
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this is news coming to you live from berlin and donavan inflicts on kabul several. 100 injured in a bombing by the minute into group the attack comes despite its promises in recent peace talks to protect civilians. russia's losing battle with massive wildfires is a climate catastrophe to get an update from moscow. and millions in zimbabwe are on the brink of starvation.
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