Staff Notes: Mr. Oshins Goes to China

By Cary Oshins, USCC Associate Director

In October, I had the unexpected opportunity to take my first trip to China. I was invited to participate in a “Zero Waste Workshop” as part of a annual regional economic development conference in the city of Shaoxing. Shoaxing, a city of around 1 million people, is about three hours from Shanghai, near the eastern edge of the country. I was invited by Weiping Lui, a former graduate student of Dr. Ramani Narayan, the preeminent Michigan State professor and leading expert in compostable plastics.

Weiping has started a successful compostable products manufacturing company, Hunan Green Star Biotechnology Co., Ltd.  Recognizing the compostable products will not succeed in the long run without a robust composting industry and infrastructure, Weiping took advantage of a recently-announced initiative from President Xi Jinping on plastic pollution reduction to add the zero waste workshop to the pre-existing conference. My job was to introduce what composting is and why they should adopt it.

 

The conference included economic development tours of the city, a welcome dinner complete with Chinese opera, singers and acrobats, a morning plenary, the afternoon workshop and then a meeting with the city leaders on how our team (Weiping, Dr Narayan, myself and a professor from Washington State) could help reduce waste in the city. 

Those events were followed by a private dinner with the zero-waste presenters and the city leaders.  The next steps are still being negotiated by Weiping, and it remains to be seen if the USCC will have a part in that.  There is not a lot of composting going on in China (yet), but the potential is huge!  For example, they estimate that 70% of the MSW is food waste. After being fed by my hosts for five days, I believe it!

My hosts were very gracious and provided me with two days of sightseeing in their region, including some of the oldest parts of China with history stretching back 5,000 years. I was usually the only Caucasian in sight, which made for some amusing interactions. I hope to return some day in the future to help China combat pollution and see the famous sights I missed this time.