Filmmaker behind Beijing waste exposé turns attention to trash trade
Wang Jiuliang's expose on Beijing's dumping grounds caught the attention of powerful people, but his battle against waste is far from over, writes Andrea Chen
As the snarl of a garbage truck disrupts the quiet of an enormous expanse of waste, scavengers follow the noise to the site and rummage through the trash for recyclable material. Then goatherds move in, allowing their goats to graze for food scraps amid the plastic fragments and construction waste.
The opening shot of photographer Wang Jiuliang's award-winning 2011 documentary, Beijing Besieged by Waste, pans over an illegal site, one of 460 rubbish dumps that he visited during an investigation into the Chinese capital's disposal network. Its disturbing images have pricked consciences about the environmental costs of the country's breakneck development whenever it was screened. Each time, audiences have invariably asked one question: what happened to the illegal sites following his exposé?
Villagers told me [they feared] that the ground water has been contaminated
"Since I revisited most of the sites during 2011-2012 … I can assure you that 80 per cent of the illegal sites have been closed or turned into sanitary landfills by the authorities," says Wang, who was at a screening of his film last month at the Asia Society's Hong Kong centre.
However, the question most often raised misses the key issue he hopes to address in his documentary.
"Who produces the waste and how can we reduce it? I made the documentary to show the audience my answers," says Wang. "It is consumerism. It is us."
According to Beijing municipal authorities, more than 6.48 million tonnes of solid waste went into the capital's 15 authorised landfills in 2012. This worked out at an average of 17,753 tonnes - enough to fill five Olympic-size swimming pools - every day. And that's not including the material that was going into illegal dumps.