Agence France Presse | Mar. 31, 1999

BEIJING -- China's largest cotton producing area in the northwest plans to get rid of "white pollution" caused by plastic sheets which local farmers use to protect crops, state media reported.

The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region will use plastic sheeting recovery technology and environment-friendly products on over 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) of irrigated farmland in the next six to seven years, Xinhua news agency quoted a regional government agriculture official as saying.

Plastic sheeting was introduced to Xinjiang in the late 1970s and has been widely used in agricultural production to help increase cotton, corn, and wheat production.

In far northwestern Xinjiang the cotton output doubled with the use of the plastic sheets, said Xinhua.

The region accounts for a sixth of China's landmass and produces about a third of China's cotton output.

But waste plastic left in fields does not decompose easily and destroys the land and affects crops.

A study in Hami city found there was an average of 38.7 kilograms of plastic sheeting left over on every hectare of cotton field last year, costing farmers more than 500,000 yuan ($60,300).

The plastic waste was either burned by farmers which caused serious air pollution or simply strewn everywhere by the wind.

Xinjiang had benefited from the use of plastic sheets to protect crops in the past, but the region's environment has been damaged, said a monitoring station employee.

In the last two years, Xinjiang has developed machines to collect the plastic waste and government departments are working to develop new materials and biodegradable plastic sheeting. (c) 1999 Agence France Presse)