virtually all most of the 500 cases have been conserved in china. up next it's a documentary film on germany and how it's failing to get to grips with huge amounts of plastic packaging sold his state shoots it out on the floors get the latest on a website is d w dot com i'm going home free invited back to accompany us east. it's all happening the children of. your link to news from africa the world your links to exceptional stories and discussions to no one will come to their views undergoing program and from foreign agenda the common use of easy to our website d w this comes much africa to join us on facebook to tell you africa. plastic

garbage everywhere. it's piling up all over germany. is that there's just too much of that in mind off of high energy there was cycling then at home but it feels right up again if you know about a business is doing the politicians really need to crack down on this it's not enough to just ban it plastic bags and straw the displacer truth is for because it's all i know. most germans sort their garbage by type but why is only 20 percent of plastic waste recycled. lessons but everybody the politicians say they can't expect businesses to do it any to me. and plastic waste is a big business in germany and around the world it's having a negative impact on people's lives and on the environment. does this was a good woman sort of that it's a real cause for concern this material has been affecting soil composition for at

least several decades on a global scale it's not a pleasant thought. i'm sure the dog. why can't we get rid of plastic waste. for this report we visited several locations around germany where a lot of plastic is used farms for example across the country a total of more than $70000.00 tons of plastic sheeting covers the crops. about 20 percent of the country's farmland is used to grow asparagus more than $20000.00 hectares. close to one folks runs $180.00 hectare asparagus and strawberry farm on the outskirts of cologne.

up to 180 people work here depending on the season. like many asparagus farmers folks uses plastic sheeting to speed up crap growth and increase productivity. he supplies asparagus to a number of major retailers. the plastic of the shooting is back on one side and white on the other we use the backside when it's cold out. but it was 26 degrees or so over the weekend so we switched to the white side. we're going to order the sheeting forms a series of many tunnels over the crop for tunnels act like a greenhouse to make the saw a bit warmer it's a lot of work to get asparagus ready to harvest early in the year. first paragraph

season used to begin in may and. but now we start in march. and the plastic sheeting helps us to do that. or if the roar of the. folks has been using the sheeting for several years now. he says he disposes of it properly and that can be expensive. he is a similar sheets to protect his strawberry crops and those materials must be disposed of separately. about 80 percent of all the plastic sheeting used on german farms is incinerated after the crops are harvested. these sheets are widely used around the country. technically speaking they are classified as packaging which makes up the largest share of german plastic waste. folks says

he's seen no evidence to indicate that the sheeting has introduced micro plastic fragments into the soil. or years of milk or plastic in the army it's we haven't carried out specific tests for micro plastics we've been successfully growing crops there for years and if there were any problems with the soil we'd know about it. so i don't see any reason to test for micro plastics. no more than a shred in the. extensive research into the dangers posed by micro plastics only began recently no one actually knows how much of this material has gotten into the soil and water is. one of the pioneers of that research is professor mathias the league a biologist at the free university of berlin. clearly it is an expert on plant and

soil ecology and has spent the past several years studying the effects of micro plastics on the environment. it's mid-level in britain this is mine this material can get into the soil in a variety of different ways for example as trace substances in the atmosphere they can also be produced by the wear and tear on car tires. or it can come from materials used in agriculture such as compost or plastic sheeting. that's how micro plastics get into the surface of the soil but they will have no negative effect until they actually become incorporated into the soil itself. we want to find out how that happens. how does this process work because. they like and his staff conducted

a series of experiments that involved earthworms which are commonly found in soil and feed on organic matter this is the valve on monday and i'm a soil biologist so my 1st choice was to use our earth worms well. they interact with the soil in various ways for for example by consuming it and excluding waste material and by building burrows and through our experiments we confirmed that they can bring micro plastics into the soil. into the stew for sunderland trying to date the lake and his assistants are studying plastic 5 herself michael plastics come in various shapes and can affect the soil in different ways. longer fibers can cause more damage than shorter ones. the team are using a wind for idea fibrous to make sure that the test results are as accurate as possible and if it was. just the team on the term micro plastics covers

a wide range of substances. just think about all the plastic items that you have around the house all the different shapes and colors and physical properties. today we're working with polyester fibers. and we've done some experiments with poly acrylics as well. as micro plastics can also come in a sort of how to reform like this polypropylene. and they have a much different effect on the soil than fibers do if it wouldn't use the funds and . we asked professor really how micro plastics affect the soil. of those within our soil consists of various components that constantly combine with each other and then break up with we found that the soil aggregates become more unstable in the presence of micro plastic

fibers. and that's a real problem because if the soil aggregates are unstable and start breaking down it can lead to soil erosion. and these aggregates play an important role in storing carbon in the soil. but when they become unstable the organic component parts can be composed more easily and that could release carbon dioxide into the environment like that since it's just begun so it's why be done. so the presence of micro plastics in soil could increase c o 2 emissions which can have a negative effect on the environment. and once the plastic gets into the soil it stays there. i'm worried about the fact that there's nothing we can do to remove these micro plastics substances from the soil and that we can't break them down either. and

i'm absolutely convinced that this is the case. and it's a real cause for concern. this material has been affecting soil composition for at least several decades but on a global scale. it's not a pleasant thought. in april 2900 nearly 20000 people took part in the hamburg marathon and their running shoes left trace elements of micro plastics all over the streets. the material was spread around by wind and rain and a lot of it got into the soil or the city drainage system treatment plants can filter out only a fraction of the micro plastics that turned up in runoff water. and

during the race the runners who used an estimated 160000 disposable cups. city sanitation crews managed to pick up all of them but the cuts were not recycled . or happier. while the law to mine i've got 15 or 20 people on the job here with truck mounted sweepers most of the stuff that they're picking up is drinking cups we just hold everything to the incinerator and to take his days to sort it all for recycling and that's just not possible to target. in fact about one half of all of our plastic ends up being burned. them and as my little it's amazing how much plastic people use and it just ends up in the trash as extreme as a plastic plastic is a problem not just for me at home but also here at the marathon with all those disposable cups the runners use them out on the course and also after the race.

after laughed like a long. shore it's a problem. all the stuff you buy in the shops is wrapped in plastic. and if you buy produce at the market and it's covered in plastic you just throw it away. i know we have to do more to cut back on plastic packaging. but plastic materials are cheaper to produce in germany because the government exempts the fossil fuels that they use to make them from energy taxes some critics say that has to change. the fuels are exempted if they're used for commercial purposes not heating every year the federal government publishes a report on the subsidies that damage the environment the most. they've calculated that this one costs about 1500000000 euro so. that's why it's so cheap to produce

plastic products it's use i'd like to see recycling play a bigger role in this process. but if the big companies can cover their cost by using that option to do it as with then they'll still stick with a system that's now in place is so i'm going to name $1.00 it's made a new member turned into. so in germany it's cheaper to produce new plastic then it is to recycle it. but experts say there are several good alternatives to this process and you have the hamburger university of technology i've heard so cast in kuta and some of her students study in various kinds of packaging to see whether it can be recycled. today they'll be looking at common everyday items including shower gel chewing gum and cleaning products. people in germany recycle about 75 percent of their garbage that some kinds of packaging

simply cannot be reused. with an infant was ok let's get this stuff sorted. out but there's a lot of different products. you know yes the students can't find any information on these products that says whether they can be recycled that would be a helpful detail for consumers. to work with if that's not required by law right. if you're from new york. i just opened the lid on this container and under it there's another lead. so the 1st one is just for decoration. i think they could have done all that differently. and we finish it's nothing because even if we did it it doesn't matter to me whether my shower gel comes in a black package. and the plastic container shouldn't be made of materials that are

hard to recycle. and i think it's. as it does if those there's one made of p.t. thermal plastic polymer that's pretty easy to recycle recycle and the container is transparent which means the sorting machines can spot it quickly. just the label peels off easily to recycle plastic and your ticket. so much invest it's always good to find a product like that it'll help us to find a solution to this package comes in a sleeve it's also made of p.t. but not the same kind as the container so we can't recycle them together to help me to recycle it it is quite recently and only experts can figure out the complexities of product packaging. a research assistant at the university examines a container of ground beef. yeah. there's no label here that tells

you what kind of plastic it is just from constructors it's lines on we analyzed the container in the lab and found out it has several layers johns and. those extra layers help to protect the product from alter violet light and they also make the package more durable because. it's really humid and they won't be able to process it at the recycling plant because it's not proper plastic and so it'll end up in the energy recovery process let's say stands in. useful books and in this container is made of polypropylene core p.-p. p.-p. it says so right here. p.p. is quite easy to recycle. but it's got a layer of dark foil here so the sorting machines will toss it out right away a lot you. can on that light side and it's got an aluminum lid if you toss it in

your recycling bin without removing the lid. they won't be able to process it as proper plastic and. i get that kind of as if he does the few of the companies that make these plastics don't tell consumers anything about them so all of my students are environmentally conscious and even they can't distinguish among all the different kinds. that the producers or the supermarkets don't provide any information so by mock them. and they keep coming out with new kinds of packaging so it's hard to keep up with all of it. the chief of a. stretch if it's awful i try to find out as much as i can but every state does it differently so even if you make an effort you can't get a lot of the information that you need so it's moot. that the fuel is on top as

a mature i was well i certainly tossed a lot of stuff in the wrong recycling bin. and all tooth brush or something. as it was and. i once took an online test about recycling you know i got a lot of the answers wrong but i try to do what i can. to feel like you. this is the only a waste disposal company and hamburg they process a lot of garbage here. they'd like to be able to recycle more of this material but they can't mostly for technical reasons. every year in germany an estimated $14000000.00 tons of plastics end up at facilities like this only about 10 percent of that total comes from recycled plastics.

we're good at sorting our plastic waste but what can. we use more of it. does begin to arm the argument part of the reason is that the infrared technology we use to identify different kinds of material can't catch everything for example if a package is black the sensor won't pick it up because the color black doesn't reflect light. so if we can't see it we can't sort it. and this bottle for example is made of high density polyethylene so it should be easy to recycle since the plastic is black the sensor won't see it and it won't get into the system and cries of towards the front of the dust resizing of the. veolia is part of germany's dual system waste disposal program under the system consumers can place packaging material in a special bin and it will be picked up by private disposal companies. the packaging

industry pays a fee to finance that part of the program. the government's 2900 target for recycling plastic materials was about 60 percent but the actual number is closer to about 20 percent. some say that the way the figures are calculated is misleading. yet. let's say 75 percent of the plastic waste goes into the recovery process after sorting that number drops to 50 percent and of that total only 20 percent is actually recycled. that's not good for germany's reputation as a world leader in recycling it's unfit in recycling vent my stuff though actually and. the government's recycling data also includes plastic waste that is shipped overseas for disposal sometimes to countries where environmental standards are

comparatively low. risk up in and then when the man finding that might some countries especially china would use low quality recycled waste in the manufacture of cheap products and they could sort the material by hand. we don't do that in europe because it's just too expensive. so if there was no market in germany for that low quality waste we'd ship it to china malaysia india or turkey. on the. indian and he took it and. 2 of the world's leading importers of recyclable waste china and malaysia have now banned all shipments of this material so lot of german plastic garbage ends up in turkey. we've come to the port city of messing to find out more. turkey's plastics production industry depends heavily on imports of plastic waste because unlike in germany it's cheaper in turkey to recycle it then

it is to produce new plastic. independent contractors collect recyclable material on the street and take it to collection points. an estimated 500000 people now earn their living by collecting plastic waste. but business has been bad recently many of the people who pick up this material say that they're not making any money. we talk to some of them to find out why. then he could lose says that imports of presorted plastic waste have ruined his business he's been doing this for 25 years and things have never been this bad.

boy the way. well you know. turkey imported nearly 440000 tons of waste in 2018 most of it came from germany and britain is a little bit of an obvious one. that of a. particular. bought with a check i only take. the symbol. so if we sell one ton of this material for $1500.00 turkish lira or about $240.00 euros imported waist sells for $1000.00 lire or about $160.00 euros so the recycling companies make more money out of. imports of plastic waste and could prove recyclers and plastics manufacturers but

not for the independent contractors. that lee says that 40 people used to work at this collection point. but now there are just 20. they want you just like we can't sell what we pick up because of the imports. business is so bad that we may have to shut this place down and find other ways to earn a living. we just had a big discussion about that. this is a huge problem for me and my family and for everyone that works here. well the last 2 or 3 months have been really tough. the plastic. the recyclers tell us that the prices keep falling because so much plastic waste is coming in from foreign countries. turkey is europe's 2nd largest producer of plastics after germany but the country can't keep up with

all the plastic waste that people throw away. only a fraction of it is incinerated because of the high cost. of a lot of garbage ends up in dumps like this one located near the city of atlanta northwest of mare seen. we're not allowed to film inside the facility. in this residential area some people dump their garbage illegally. the exact rate of recycling in turkey is not known. to find out more about that we talk to young. the president of the turkish plastics industry foundation and c.e.o. of a big plastics company and altogether their love for home i don't have such a number i don't know because the other one is very hard to find because the

beautiful ones you talk about the way you know the good the construction it's that easy to find some numbers that you see that even in the ministries i couldn't have find the numbers unfortunately because the system also consists of this street collectors you can get the real statistical amount of the use of. local recyclers seem sensitive to publicity none of them allowed us to film at their site. one company near out another process is only german garbage let us film but didn't want its name use. separate collected high quality waste is one of the important issues for the plastic industry for sort of political enemy and this closed loop systems already we are in turkey trying to make more separate collection as i said we want to increase this part of the business but there is

still a gap why because turkish plastic industry is very big and it's all of the exporting to a lot of countries and we don't have enough separate collected waste separative correlated high quality waste. but turkey also imports a lot of trash that can't be recycled. now we're going to talk to an expert who knows a lot about that problem. better kind of man is the president of the local association of waste collectors cut a man met with us at our hotel in atlanta and brought along a video for us to watch what they did there. he says these containers are filled with unsorted garbage and arrived in mass seen a few days ago we cannot verify his claim. now you can see it better there's soil and also toxic waste and medical waste.

there's absolutely no way that you can call this recyclable material. show these pictures to any waste management expert and they'll confirm that. i've been on the. this garbage has been imported from overseas. only about 20 percent of it can be recycled. the rest will probably be incinerated. and the imports are making it impossible for us to sell our recycled plastic waste that he just sits at the collection centers. our business is fallen by 80 percent. so there's no point in picking it up off the streets anymore. because no one is

going to buy it. so. common says the situation has created serious problems for turkey's recycling system yahoo is at all who agrees and says that limit should be in. published on garbage imports. the world is looking for high good quality plastics and our we was very simple if uncontrolled import of waste is bad for our industry because it will make it bad and why a mental problem plus this in my mental problem unfortunately it will have also effect of the image of our industry because in a way it will effect for sure so we are very very solid on the idea that it should be controlled idea not banned but controlled in a way that we could separate the waste and the separate collected one that is used for the blessing in this. earlier this year countries that belong to the basle

convention approved tighter controls on plastics exports but it's not yet clear how the process will be monitored we wanted to find out how the german government checks on the plastic waste that it exports. as a plastic if you feel it's under plastic is a commodity that has market value not only within the e.u. but in other countries as well and. exports of commodities are part of a market economy. in the future e.u. member states will be allowed to export only pure plastic waste kind. that's an important step forward but those exports will have to be properly monitored should contribute to. the monitoring is keep various government agencies are involved in the this is in some cases it would be the responsibility of individual german

states. but many states don't have enough staff to enforce all the waste regulations fish and keep it in. but in the case of exports the monitoring would be done by the federal customs authorities but that's on you know an interest in the bid. we asked the customs service about that and they were furred us to state level officials who said we should talk to the customs service. so german garbage will likely continue to be dumped in turkish landfills. some of it will end up in 2 rivers that flow into the mediterranean sea the j one and say honey. we've come to accurate on beach to meet marine biologist say dad a good endo do. the beach is an important nesting ground for green sea turtles but it's become polluted with plastic waste.

especially the coals cost of other american and how tight is one of the most polluted ari i. find here we can find any kind of nasty or instance we can find the raw material plastic they're all material like version a let's. coming from landfill like this like this gem or bought or kept but that's the this is because of an effect of waste management the problem is here we are not able to manage our plastic if we are not able to manage our own that's why we are importing the waste from other countries. the world wildlife fund says that turkey's southeast coast has the highest rate of plastic pollution in the entire mediterranean region. in the region around there's an average of $31.00 kilos of debris per kilometer.

plastic that you can see and plastic that is hardly visible. is an associate professor at too good of a university in atlanta he spent several years studying the effects of micro plastics on marine life. today he's going to test some oysters for the presence of plastic particles. goodnow 2 found traces of this material in all of the oysters that he examined similar tests have concluded that the amount of fragments that turn up in shellfish and fish is directly related to the amount of micro plastics in their environment. he advises the samples closely to try to determine their composition.

here you can see another very family's passage nurdle this is all material row plastic very family is one is fiber this red one and black one both are for us they're the number the quantity was shocking because we expect that much. if this organism it's micro plastic and if this organism and it's mean that we eat plastic and nobody knows what's going on because when plastics enter in to our body . it's mean that there we are under trav of this type of chamakh of particles. the effect of micro plastics on human health is not yet known but a recent w w f study said that we consume an average of 5 grams of these materials per week about the same weight as a credit card. there are. there's always 3rd one of the.

family is a cultural barrier though one of the common application is greenhouse cars single use greenhouse cowers film so they are living all this film on the field and then they're in for 3 of us films just washing up to the sea and then really is see it is just the in an all star. plastic waste has become a serious threat to the environment in recent years. now will return to christian folks aspiring in germany. books hires an extra 30 people during the asparagus season. they harvest the crop peel the asparagus and

then package it. a new german law says just under 2 thirds of all plastic packaging will be recycled by 2022. according to that legislation folks is considered a primary distributor which means that he has to pay more for packaging that's hard to recycle. but folks doesn't decide which packaging to use his big retail clients to. their host when they're good for adventure but they have the final say on how the asparagus is delivered. one customer wants a specific packaging system and another will want something else but it's different for all my clients and that makes things complicated. we have to keep in our packaging material and start to meet demand. whether it's boxes or recyclable packaging and that's a lot of work. it's. the

new packaging recycling law went into effect in early 2019 but fox says that so far it hasn't had much of an effect on his business. these global thus the cost we pay more for some kinds of packaging and have to qualify for a special license that has nothing to do with the amount of plastic materials that we use the $5.00 and. at the end of the day it's the customers who decide what kind of packaging they want. the name of suppliers like ours have no say in the matter the end the version for packing we have a name and. the german environment ministry says it hasn't seen much of a drop in the use of primary plastics since the law went into a fact but some experts say that increased recycling would make

a big difference right away. it's a classic water it is a fork a tax on the c o 2 that is produced in plastics would make recycling much more competitive. cycling dog we have to stop subsidizing the manufacture of primary plastic products of. friends and. there are lots of different options how don't think there's a single overall solution. but we have the means to deal with this situation we simply need to get started and decide what we want to achieve. or. to stand up folks and his colleagues aren't sure what the new packaging law is trying to achieve. you have to. there's a lot of uncertainty and no one wants to get caught out. but it's not clear who has

to pay for what it's a bureaucratic sideshow. of course we should cut down on plastic packaging. but we use a lot of it in this business to make sure that the product gets to consumers. and we could take it with a delivery system and maybe that would help to reduce the amount of plastic that we use you know with. erdos goodman to your feet. but the german government has so far declined to impose a minimum quota for recycling or a c o 2 tax on the petroleum that's used in plastics production. a spokesman for the environment ministry says officials prefer a less drastic approach. in few momentary commitments have worked well for us in many areas but they get results more quickly and with less red tape regulation by legislation can be complex and difficult because it's. done so and

for this is. a lot of people don't like the idea of government regulations for industry but germany seems to be falling behind here in the e.u. and consumers are demanding a tougher response but everyone is afraid of making investments that may turn out to be unnecessary. out there. still because time folks is doing what he can to reduce the use of plastics for example at his praties shop. it's supposed to be peeled the container was told that. it. might show you. the idea found one is here it's done quite well so far at 1st consumers didn't realize that we were trying to cut our consumption of plastics so we told them that they could use their own containers as the author was made plain and clear and

wondered more and more people are now bringing bags in cans for the asparagus and strawberries that they buy. and we fill them right up here in the shop. like you i'm for and. next month. as a band begins and consumers seem to be ready to do more to reduce their consumption of plastics. it's not just something that you read about in opinion polls we're seeing actual results when it comes to recycling us people are stepping up. its. and these people vote the politicians don't seem to understand that people are concerned about this problem and are prepared to do something about it yet they want a production system that's sustainable and cut back on plastic waste. a short legs

and calm you have when it's below here people used to laugh at us when we'd come into the store with our mash bags but we were on the right track i don't use paper bags you can put a mesh bag in your pocket. and i don't buy cucumbers or bananas that are wrapped. and i shop at markets where i can help to finance the recycling effort or to finish . up so i. think it's my medical and i always try to bring a mash bad to the supermarket and when i have lunch at the arcade i put it in a tupperware container. it's a bit more work now people didn't used to worry about this but somebody must miss when you get out because it was so far why you would decide it's you know i try to do what i can but plastic products are part of life and you can't avoid them. from so it's a huge job it was in the fridays for future campaign is helping to change the way that older people think about this and that's good because we all have to work

together. more and more people are changing the way they think about their use of plastics. but until politicians and industry take more effective measures the situation in germany isn't going to change much. the right sounds a. little. bit decides on what's good for whom we spend our money. the time in our minds about cars cars or how sounds determine our knowledge. made in germany and 30 minutes on d w. during the conflict on our runs his

presidency manual micro likes to be seen as one of the driving forces for reform in the news i guess this week here in brussels issues former europe minister not so you want to go one of his most roku cheerleaders for the european parliament is the micro revolution going on soon or has it run out of steam in the complex so cool few minutes on w. grappling hooks subjects. express feelings i am not very creative yet but i would love to be considered an artist one day looking for new perspectives clearly to help you know to be replenished breakthrough for the camera doing things differently. come to the place where we reflect on society.

march 28th want to double. up today don't miss our highlights w. program online w. dot com highlights. this is the news these are all top stories chinese also. networks and he will haunt the city at the center of the cone rhone of ours outbreak that has killed 7000 people the government is urging people not to leave in a suspended all slights when the 500 cases have been concerned in china on sept.