MAR DE PLASTICO - The Plastic City that Produces Fruits and Vegetables

Welcome to Almeria's "Mar de Plastico", located in El Ejido (Spain).
Sources:
earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ima...
www.aljazeera.com/features/20...
www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/11/1/101
www.publicacionescajamar.es/p...
www.scotsman.com/news/opinion...
www.theguardian.com/global-de...
elpais.com/espana/2023-01-30/...
www.economist.com/europe/2000...
elpais.com/america/sociedad/2...
www.researchgate.net/publicat...
www.lemonde.fr/planete/articl...
www.mdpi.com/2311-7524/6/4/83
www.juntadeandalucia.es/presi...
La Resistencia: / laresistenciaalmeria
0:00 introduction
0:38 Inside Almeria's Mar de Plastico

[@SvenMolhuijsen1]

You should checkout Westland in the Netherlands, a similar area but with glass greenhouses. It's lit 24/7 and even during the night you can stand on 10km distance in the middle of nowhere and still see everything around you because of light pollution

[@piggyraccoon5464]

Whats wrong with that?

[@mqdboy9278]

When I went to Almería I was surprised by the sheer magnitude of the greenhouses

[@decflecc98]

At 7:03 you made a mistake with the exchange rate. 5€=5,5$ and not 3$. Just wanted to make people aware of that

[@vrdrivesolutions3695]

The pay isn't even *that* bad tbh, working conditions may suck but still...

[@federubio2519]

@@vrdrivesolutions3695 Would you work for 5$ an hour?

[@vrdrivesolutions3695]

@@federubio2519 Worked for 7$ for a while, not great not terrible

[@dawcakrwi2591]

@@federubio2519 A lot of poles would(i'm polish myself) and as said it's mostly migrants working there who are used to even less of a wage

[@ameliarosealdridge6468]

As someone who lives and grew up in Almeria, one of our school trips was unironically to go to their colletion facilities where we learnt to grow tomatoes. And to add to this, the mar de plástico is also at risk to being replaced with solar panels as Morocco has started to overtake "our products". My hometown of Tabernas has had a massive solar panel farm that quite literally only stops next to cortijos (country houses). The megaproject is split into thousands of smaller projects that happened in a staggered succession to avoid any say from environmental groups and to avoid any mandatory environment tests. EDIT: These projects ultimately devastate the area, leading to massive water shortages, corruption and all sorts of shady business. The only reason not many people speak out against it is because people here are generally desperate for work and most people work under the table for at most 10-12€ an hour. Promise people jobs and people won't complain... If they ever were to complain. To quote a friend from highschool, if you want any progress to be made, you have to rely on foreigners.

[@sutixela]

No tienes por que hablar en spaninglish, con decir directamente "the sea of plastic" queda mejor y es menos raro.

[@jaquesmoon]

​@@sutixela no toques los huevos anda, se ha expresado de puta madre😂

[@federubio2519]

Tu conclusión es una tontería, el progreso de españa lo forjamos los españoles y nadie más. Si el mar de plástico existe y esta basado en la explotación se debe a que Franco y su oligarquía, que todavía sigue ahi aunque no no los cuenten, servían los intereses de los europeos del norte. Y lo que hay que hacer con esa zona es generar energía renovable, alrededor de la cual aparecerá una industria en la que españa si puede ser puntera, y que generara un empleo mucho mas sostenible y sano que la agricultura intensiva del mar de plástico.

[@jaquesmoon]

@@federubio2519 eso esta bien pero por curiosidad, y que de los problemas q ha expresado como la escased de agua, destrucción del suelo, corrupcion... q representa esa indústria? Es fácil hacer planes utópicos. No digo q esa industria no sea una buena solución pero no creo q estés teniendo en cuenta todos las questions geopoliticas q eso representa, desde la creación de esas placas solares y materiales necsarios hasta su vida útil, hasta como reciclarlas (cosa muy difícil y poco eficiente hoy dia)... más mil otras cosas q no he dicho. Por último me gustaría añadir q quienes simplemente descartan las opiniones de los demás como tonterías normalmente son los más limitados mentalment hablando....

[@V223-df2js]

That sure is good English , Señora Aldridge

[@bajamarbass]

Nice to see you trying something new with this more investigative style. Great to see you in the subscription feed with new content.

[@MrRoyalOss]

Isnt this the problem in most countries. The banana plantages in the South Americas, Maxicans in the USA, eastern Europeans in West Europa and even the tomato farms in Italy, all fueled by cheap illegal labor.

[@baptistamercado1380]

Welcome back! I saw your community post saying this channel wasn’t abandoned. I thought it would be another few weeks before you posted again, and I expected some run of the mill, quick, no frills video. I’m pleasantly surprised & glad your first vid (since the hiatus) was field work/site visit. Doing field work/going out and visiting the site in person, really makes this channel stand out amongst channels with similar content.

[@davesprivatelounge]

The fact that the seeds of these fruits and vegetables are sterile by design... I remember some African leader saying the grain they would receive as aid could not be used to grow more grain. These things are by design. Sounds like something a supervillain from some cartoon would create. Incredibly dystopian

[@JkaBG]

It is by design, to get better yield. It's like this in the entire EU.

[@davesprivatelounge]

@@JkaBG why is sterility a precondition though?

[@Bobylein1337]

Yes keeping them sterile is unatural and keeps the farmers dependent on the companies producing the seeds BUT would it be really less dystopian if those seeds could spread everywhere with the chance of replacing/modify the original species? Also I am honestly not sure if they are all actually "sterile" as in nothing will grow, I am pretty sure a lot of those plants gonna be F1 Hybrids as the man says: "They won't grow as they were before" and honestly I feel I would prefer those seeds to stay sterile, even though I very much like the idea of GMO seeds who are able to withstand harsher conditions in general, because in the end it's not too far off from what humanity does for thousands of years already but faster and we need this for the climate change coming..

[@peterpan4038]

​@@davesprivatelounge Yes, said seeds are indeed designed to yield a lot, the fact that they are sterile is to make sure they can't be homegrown. Multinational seed producers offer the most productive seeds, and to protect their profits they made them infertile. Farmers in the EU could use fertile seeds as well (this is much harder in the US), but those seeds won't yield anything close to what the industry seeds offer. There are certainly winners and losers in this system, but one thing is for sure: we are able to produce more food than ever, and NOTHING sparks conflicts and war like a weak food supply. That's why politicians worldwide are fine with this, everything is better than a lack of food.

[@JkaBG]

@@davesprivatelounge It is not. It is a effect from GMO by tying to make the fruits and vegetables bigger.

[@longoniadriano]

Senza troppo giri di parole: c'è un grandissimo bisogno di video come questi mche mettono jn discussione le illusioni di superiorità di noi europei. Piú fine uti come questi servirebbero a far sviluppare la nostra coscienza su certi argomenti. Ben fatto: adesso di piú e meglio grazie.

[@damiaanluc]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Very insightful. Great work 🙏

[@CapybaraEnjoyer95]

I'm so glad you're making videos in English again! I tried watching some videos on the main channel, but I don't speak Italian and KZbin's auto translate feature is pretty unintelligible

[@User-kk6ys]

Just found this channel and hope it grows, love your videos.

[@TheAnthraxBiology]

Absolutely fantastic video. So glad you're back and loved how different this was.

[@ScorpioIsland]

Just want to say incredible work. Thanks for putting in a great effort on a mostly unknown subject.

[@ManmadeHorrorsBeyond]

Great video, the shots from inside the place were downright surreal

[@Drunken_Master]

Requiescat in pace drone! Nice to see you back guys. When I found your channel I started feeling bit sad for not speaking Italian.

[@Cronkna]

Thanks for narrating it this time, I honestly didn’t watch because of that. But now I will

[@perfectallycromulent]

there is a smaller sea of greenhouses in Zuid-Holland south of Den Haag

[@grootjohnmorrison4165]

Great docco, good work

[@ImperialSublimeEmpire]

Comment for algorithm!

[@theslapchanel]

Comment for world peace

[@JohnDir-xw3hf]

Algorithms can filter sach a useless comments.

[@beag1090]

Very good video! More people should watch it. Don't give up, please

[@jakob9325]

Omg he didn't give up on his KZbin channel. Best geopolitics channel on KZbin!!!

[@novalectiointernational]

I am super busy with the Italian channel, but when possible, I'll always try to post videos here as well :)

[@harshaneelakandan6721]

You are the best economic/political commontator love your persepctives, we have missed your presence!

[@albertoperotti6510]

Thanks as usual 💪🏼💪🏼

[@Paddyboro]

I go to Mojacar every year and it extends from the airport at Almeria to just before Mojacar about 50mins on the coach it's just vast.

[@QODAS2002]

Bro italian driving a fiat is neat

[@eltaninshrdlu2925]

Very well done! Thx!

[@steinarjonsson_]

This is a great video, very interesting indeed! I've skipped over this place on maps before without ever investigating further so this video was quite eye-opening. I get that the labour situation is challenging to fix because of underbidding competition, but the plastic garbage all over the place seems unnecessary, they should be able to fix that without too much hassle.

[@federubio2519]

How would you build a cheap greenhouse with sustainable materials? You cannot. Underbidding competition also affects other types of costs, not only labour. The problem is the whole production system, which has to go. As a spaniard I am ashamed that within our frontiers such massive exploitation takes place.

[@steinarjonsson_]

@@federubio2519 I agree that it is unreasonable to expect them to stop using plastic materials. My issue was purely with the plastic trash that was scattered all over the place. The only realistic way to fix it would be for the local government to clean up the trash on a regular basis (they would have to fund the clean-up effort through state subsidies or additional taxes on the growers).

[@tylernaturalist6437]

Where you been!? Great video! I’m heading to Marbella in June, I was planning on checking out this area due to how weird it looks on Google Earth 😂 Also, I think your conversion rate was off when you talked to the Resistance. 5 Euros is 5.52 Dollars, which is disturbingly low considering our minimum wage here in NYC is $15!

[@federubio2519]

Cost of life is also much lower, but yes, they are slave wages.

[@jessequimpo7354]

Amazing guys

[@uydagcusdgfughfgsfggsifg753]

Damn this is high quality

[@jillybe1873]

Brilliant documentary

[@leolinguini260]

Youve made a mistake. When talking to the resistance guy you subtitle: 5 EUR per hour converts to 3 USD per hour.

[@alejandroojeda1572]

It's also important to note that agriculture IS innately a very destructive endeavour. The plastic sea looks bad, but with its impressive food productivity It saves thousands of acres of land from being "pretty" farms. And btw, poor conditions inmigrant work is rampant in Spain, not just in the sea of plastic. Go to Lleida and you'll see the same, but with fruit trees.

[@peterpan4038]

That's true. And let us NEVER forget: any and all societies that lack a stable food supply are bound to fall into conflict and usually end up on the chopping block of failed nations. All things considered places like this "plastic sea" save a hell of a lot more people than they harm.

[@nbandpinportugal]

What do you mean by " pretty " farms ? Do you mean more sustainable farms with less environmental damage ?

[@agent1821]

Slight clarification for those unfamiliar with currency exchange rates. EUR € to $ USD is incorrect in the closed captioning. €5 should be almost $5.50 at the time this video was posted. Closed captioning has it at $3 about 7 minutes into the video.

[@stueyphone]

Good journalism

[@feeniks100]

The massive field of greenhouses looks almost dystopion, an endless sea of plastic tents stretching into the harshly glaring horizon. It's eerie.

[@potentiallyunfunnyguy9716]

Good grief, and I thought we had a lot of greenhouses here in the Netherlands.

[@adrianamil3]

I am stunned! 😮

[@KillerAceUSAF]

Been by there when I was living there, it's really cool.

[@pinkeltje304]

A good docu.

[@yatarookayama8329]

very interesting 🤔🤔 A very similar greenhouses are in Crete at the other side of Mediterranean sea !

[@Petroleuses7]

Grazie siete grandi e quasi unici… continuate perfavore

[@tariklyacoubi8197]

Good job guys ! Da nova a supernova è un attimo.

[@pkre707]

Had no idea about this!

[@bucyrus5000]

This is one of the most cyberpunk dystopian things I've seen outside NA and Mainland China.

[@petrbelohoubek6759]

looks AWESOME!

[@pannkale9259]

This is so interesting

[@icthiolavarunt5363]

Damn, I live in a town near Seville, in the west of Andalucia; and I knew most of the fruits and vegetables were grown in Almería, i just never knew they where grown so intensely in greenhouses. The quickest answer I always got to was that them having a higher influence from the Mediterranean they had a more stable and fertile climate than the countryside I saw around my town. But of course the climate is not that different, and of course they need so much plastic to grow the amounts they grow. Goes to show even local-ish people don't know about all of this.

[@deniseproxima2601]

How get their enough water? It must deplete the underground water.

[@itsfinnickbitch63]

what an amazing video. this deserves way more attention

[@stansheppard6345]

Thanks for this material, labour conditions must be improved

[@beegees21]

But not at the cost of you paying more for it every day. Got it

[@stansheppard6345]

@@beegees21 rich must pay

[@lotert14]

7:04 what are these conversion rates

[@hammadurrehman2041]

Good one

[@valfrittefternamn]

The dollar rate is shown a little bit wrong. 5 euros isn't 3 usd, but rather a little bit over 5 USD

[@CM_Burns]

reupload?

[@MrMackB]

As Technology progresses, the need for these people will cease. Then the problem will be forgotten and somewhere else it will continue to be ignored. It's very sad. Though, I'm hopeful for people to recognize and spread word for the future.

[@bonneymoy5194]

Îts a shame this video hasnt got more attention yet because its great! Especially as a fellow european im stunished that i havent really heard about this before. Or more specifically that these are not just like normal greenhouses but basically a whole landscape marked by the scale of current societies. Thank you for your documentation of it!

[@MrD4rkSt0ne]

Little mistake at 7:04, 5 euros is not equal to 3 dollars, more like 5,50 $

[@williamg9527]

Back again!

[@hermenegildoc3933]

Love from Spain

[@fabriziopace1]

When I go to the supermarket I see many products from Spain, all year. Now I know where they come from

[@finn6492]

i saw this on google earth a couple of years ago and wondered the same thing.

[@andredeketeleastutecomplex]

I've been there. It's like a sea of destitute work slums controlled by mafiosi. Nobody is happy, the life is sucked out of that region, it's very sick.

[@Tribuneoftheplebs]

I can't believe I hadnt heard of this before wow

[@sigmundfreude4088]

There is still so much slavery in this world, we just give then other names.

[@hanknorton2069]

This was very eye-opening. Gives me hope and dread for the future simultaneously

[@lorenzobordignon6997]

Per l'algoritmo ti si supporta anche in inglese Nova

[@robertmyers6488]

Shameful to treat them like that. Europe puts on a show, but their centuries of behavior say otherwise.

[@asha8443]

Can’t imagine the ecological damage to the fish and marine wildlife in the sea near Almeria

[@pedritopedrito_]

Viva El Ejido! Mi ciudad, tierra de agricultores

[@rogofos]

7:02 excuse me but when was 5€ worth 3$?

[@greenockscatman]

Alright, I wasn't expecting it to be tasty food rather than a sea of plastic bags or whatever. Colour me pleasantly surprised!

[@TBIcel]

Yes it might be a local ecological disaster but ecologically it's also a miracle too as farmland in Europe overall has been on the decline inspite of growing pop so thankfully it takes pressure off the rest of Spain likely a big part of why forest cover has been on the incline through Spain for the past century and really the rest of the continent.

[@lolmenx4]

We spaniards don't talk about the Mar de Plastico's working conditions because yeah they are harsh, but they are only profitable because of it and the low pay...we can't kick out the migrants, so that's the only solution that they have, the only one to blame is EU forcing us to accept more people than we can afford...

[@angelikaskoroszyn8495]

EU doesn't force you to accept the unregulated labour force. They're not refugees. At least they're not treated as refugees

The solution is to buy local and boycott imported fruits and veggies.

[@sp4celess328]

Why was 5€ converted to 3$ 5EUR is more like 5.36 USD

[@Yezpahr]

14:57 Rest In Plastic drone. It has become a part of the plastic sea. The black hole of white reflective plastic that feeds Europe has eaten another victim.

[@Mustafa-nu9tj]

So what was the thing with Qatar again

[@JasperKlijndijk]

To bad you didn't mention they are about to run out of fossil water in that place wich will increase the cost of fruits in Europe hugely

[@federubio2519]

Source?

[@JasperKlijndijk]

@@federubio2519 i can´t remember wich channel it was. it was my first introduction about the plastic sea. they use fossil water out of the ground. i don´t remember the details about what the prediction was how much was left. yet you can imagen what happens in all of europe whit fruit prices if we can´t use this cheap labor and lax pesticide laws anymore

[@aaronhamburg4428]

Just a few tiny small corrections: 5 euro per hour is not $3, it's something like $5.5, this is not a lot of money but not that much lower than the legal minimum they would have to pay it the workers were legal. If you factor that is cash in hand with no tax the workers may actually en up with more than the legal minimum pay. The savings come from the fact that is pay under the table. The biggest problem is that is not legal work, the conditions in which they work and live, lack of security, healthcare etc. The fruits and veggies from those farms are not that cheap actually, they are relatively cheap by EU standards but what is going for it even more is the climate there allows for it to be grown year round, like in California. The region there actually looks and has the same climate as California. I think this plays a big role in why EU institutions turn a blind eye, it's quite important for the food security of the EU as whole. Really weird thing - local farmers that grow real organic food in their gardens and sell it on the weekly markets in the towns and villages actually charge less than the supermarkets. I was really surprised that this is the case in Andalusia, people are used to have cheap "plastic" produce in the supermakets and expensive organics on the farmers market but there is actually the exact opposite. For those that got the impression that all of Almeria is a constant sea of those farms, this is not the case, the part with those white ugly nasty farms is a small part of the province. The weather in the area is actually is not constant hell with nasty winds, there are strong winds from time to time in the winter but it has less wind than the rest of the Andalusian coast. The winter there is arguably the best in all of Europe, with tempertures around 18-20 degrees celsius in the winter (68F). I usually spend the whole winter around Almeria and Malaga with a camper because of the great weather there, where Malaga has higher night tempertures while Almeria has higher day temperatures and is possible to sunbathe throughout the whole winter, some winters is possible to swim in Almeria almost till the end of December

[@peterpan4038]

Yeah, that sea of plastic isn't a nice place, but without food security whole nations end up as "not so nice places". A stable food supply is the most fundamental thing for any society, without it conflicts and wars are just around the corner.

[@steliospasiardes678]

2:05 Cyprus is part of the European Union, you could add it in the future as to portray a more accurate image of the continent? 2:05

[@anzelmasmatutis2500]

What is alternative? Increase prices of fruits to pay higher salaries?

[@ernstschmidt4725]

off season fruit is often quite more expensive anyways

[@federubio2519]

Yes, and for better business practices. Do you really feel less comfortable paying more than eating posioned produce grown on poisoned soils with basically enslaved hands?

[@adamandsteve13]

Such a tiny patch of land can produce most of Europe's fruit and veg??

[@casperthelegend1458]

Sad your English channel doesn't get the attention it deserves all of your vids look super interesting but can't understand a lick of it unfortunately 😕

[@DiabolikSilhouette]

Commenting for the ridiculous algorithm.

[@iliabrus434]

Interesting

[@dimitrisc8749]

The same happens in Greece! It's horrible... The immigrants don't have any power and sometimes they literally get shot when they demand their money or better living conditions.

[@bluredstoneiii5594]

LIKE BRUDDAH

[@gotam302]

Finally

[@laulaja-7186]

Wow… Mer de Plastico looks exactly like South Korean agricultural areas. Why does ag do that in some places? So many other places don’t.

[@ernstschmidt4725]

intensive agriculture more yield, in less acres

[@DannyGarrigan]

Power!

[@RobinTheBot]

.... So it's a plantation? Are we just going to walk around that? Surely they're all mostly owned by the same people...

[@ermandocanga4491]

up!

[@sunrae3971]

Besides the Workers rights and the waste management i have no issue with this. Its naive to think a local subsistence economy would be enough - unless we force people to spread equally and close down Metropolitan Areas.

[@truedarklander]

This is a pretty senseless comment. No one is arguing for subsistence. Just a less wasteful greenhouse system and betting on in-season products.

[@sunrae3971]

@@truedarklander Its not. I have heard enough European leftist narratives. Romanticizing the "local small farmers" who brings their seasonal items to the local market. That is First World fantasy. My former colleague runs a (local farmer locals) distribution system in a big European city. But without Western Infrastructure you can not run such system. Many Countries, especially when it comes to Africa, can not escape poverty with these ideas and supply their mega metropolitan regions in that manner. The Dutch Farmers representing the other side of the spectrum with over production. Exporting around the world, while the waste stays here. The Problem are not Greenhouse system but waste and wealth distribution. Why should it be a problem to have vegetable off-season if there would be no waste? Its not up do me or you do decide what anyone can eat.

[@NAMMER55]

O my gosh 😮

[@RuiCBGLima]

Personally I believe there are better ways to grow food than a "sea of plastic".

[@ernstschmidt4725]

off-season? you'd need to ship it from the southern hemisphere in refrigerator ships

[@user-og1ve4kc6j]

Not sure how you got the euro€ to Dollar$ conversion at 7:04. 5€ is currently 5$36¢ not 3$

[@beegees21]

Trying to missinform people. Clearly looking for problem where ther is non. Africans are so happy to do this job they come to Spain on boats risking their lifes, so...

[@adamandsteve13]

5 euros an hour is not a small amount of money for an unskilled immigrant from Africa.

[@ape72patch1]

I’m a UK citizen and worked as a labourer in Portugal a few years ago … from 6 am to 6 pm for 35 € a day…. For any grunt work in Spain and Portugal it’s normal.

[@thewolf2213]

cool

[@anza260]

...un po come a Vittoria in Sicilia ( soprattutto ma non solamente lì). E qui, a parte il " prodotto " e " l'economia " che ne deriva c'è un ridvolto della medaglia terrificante. Che nessuno fino ad ora ha messo nel mirino di una qualsiasi azione di civiltà. Qui ci si scontra contro la Stato Siciliano non riconosciuto che comanda dentro lo Stato Italiano che soccombe.....