Individualism reigns in China—and with it, more social responsibility

AT THE GoZeroWaste workshop in Suzhou, a canal town near Shanghai, a dozen young people learn to hand-sew face masks. The single-use, surgical sort are hardly in short supply, as no country makes more masks than China. Yet the masks, which contain plastics, are rarely recycled; and Suzhou’s apprentices want to be greener. One participant says she is trying out vegetarianism, joining a tiny but growing group in China. Another “buys less stuff” since shopping binges began to “stress her out”. A third says “we are tired of consuming. We want to produce something, too.”