Editor's note: The annual World Cleanup Day is a global social action program designed to address the global international solid waste problem. It falls on September 21 this year.

More and more Chinese are becoming more aware of the importance of combating plastic pollution, among whom is the 36-year-old Fu Junsheng from the coastal city of Yantai in eastern Shandong province.

"I have been collecting, organizing and researching floating objects along the beach for eight years," Fu, the young artist who is called "scavenger of the sea", said.

Witnessing the rapid urbanization in his college years in Qingdao, another coastal city in Shandong, Fu became deeply concerned about the environmental impact of human activities, particularly marine debris. Since 2017, this graduate of oil painting has made it his mission to collect, categorize and study the "floating objects" washed ashore on the islands.

Now, Fu is based in the Changshan Islands (also known as Changdao), an archipelago area in Yantai city. For him, Changdao is where the beauties of the sea are gathered in one place. However, after every typhoon or high wind, the islands and bays get a lot of human-generated waste that floats from nearby areas. These are his "harvest" times for floating objects.

"It's like the sea has puked up the waste," Fu said.

Among those floating objects, many are items of daily use, such as toothbrushes, children's toys and slippers. Fu said he has collected over 800 single, unmatched slippers so far.

The collection that impressed him the most is a package of instant noodles produced in 1993, which has still retained its original look after 30 years because it is not biodegradable. From time to time, he also finds colorful lighters with information indicating that they are from other countries or regions.

Transforming debris into artworks

Rather than viewing the debris as mere waste, Fu considers these objects as materials for his public art projects. And his work often draws inspiration from the ancient Chinese philosophy of the five elements (or wuxing), categorizing the relationship between nature and civilization into five aspects: life, nature, energy, construction and technology.

This approach allows him to explore the symbiosis between modern and ecological civilizations. He is also inspired by the ancient mortise and tenon structures used in Chinese architecture, Fu's installations are often designed to be assembled and disassembled, symbolizing the importance of recyclability.

Last November, to better understand Fu and his work, Zhang Shiqin, who is currently doing her doctorate at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom on the topic of the presentation of trash in literature and art, visited Fu in Changdao and spent a whole day collecting floating objects. 29-year-old Zhang was deeply touched by his spirit and passion.

"Fu Junsheng is committed to incorporating traditional Chinese aesthetics and philosophy into his work, which I think is a very powerful impact and deconstruction of Western-centrism in contemporary waste art," she said.

Some of Fu's art works have been presented at the beach or in galleries in different cities or regions, letting the public truly see the contradiction and conflict between human civilization and nature, and inspiring their action.

For instance, Zhang Xu, a 30-year-old visitor to one of Fu's exhibitions in Beijing, was moved to participate in beach clean-ups on an uninhabited island in Changdao this year. In contrast to the managed and relatively clean tourist attraction beaches, the uninhabited island Zhang visited was unexpectedly littered with waste, which changed her perception toward marine protection. She noted that Fu's work goes beyond environmental protection, serving as a powerful reminder of the importance of proper waste disposal and marine conservation.

Creating waves

"The Earth's ocean is a whole, connecting different regions, so the protection of marine ecology also requires people from different countries and regions to work together," Fu said.

He also regularly shares photos and his understanding of floating objects on social media platforms, raising people's attention of marine protection. One of his hottest posts on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu has received over 77,000 likes.

Fu's influence extends beyond the art world. Yang Jian, a postgraduate student at Sinopec Research Institute of Petroleum Processing Co., LTD, who lives in Beijing, sent a message to Fu on Xiaohongshu, hoping Fu could provide different types of marine debris for his study on recycling waste plastics. Fu voluntarily provided marine waste samples to Yang, which contributed to Yang's plastic waste identification model, a key part of the research.

"The results have recently been summarized in a paper that is being submitted to an international journal. I specifically thanked Fu in the acknowledgements section," Yang said.

Fu specially created a cartoon image and characterization of a spotted seal, named "Baobao" (Bao is the pronunciation of the Chinese word for seal), when the species became a national first-class protected animal in China in 2021. Every year from February to May, spotted seals rest in Changdao on their migratory journey, they are the only species of pinniped that breeds in Chinese waters.

With the support of the local authorities, Baobao's became the tourism ambassador of Changdao and has appeared in various public programs.

Baobao caught the attention of Zhou Wei, the Oceans Project Manager from the Beijing office of Greenpeace East Asia, which led her to seek cooperation with Fu on raising public awareness on marine protection.

"Fu's artwork combines the actual collection of ocean floating objects with his unique thinking, forming a power that can hugely inspire people to think about and care for the protection of the oceans." This is how Zhou felt after seeing Fu's work for the first time, and after observing the audience's reaction while it was on display.

In the future, Fu wants to visit nearby coasts and observe how they treat human-made waste and where are the main areas where marine waste is produced, so as to accumulate effective information and experience for further prevention of marine waste at source.

"I am also looking into how to build a marine conservation community and collaborative network in the region where the floating waste originates," Fu said.