「Johor, Xing Island.」
After doing a few customers’ nails that afternoon, Liu Meizhu stretched lazily and glanced at the time. It was already 4:30.
She and a few of her friends sat on the sofa in the break room, chatting as they waited for their shift to end.
Working hours at Homo Sapiens Company were twenty days a month, with shifts lasting only five to six hours. The maximum monthly working hours were capped at 120, and special overtime could not exceed 20 hours.
Jobs like being a nail technician had very regular schedules.
While Liu Meizhu and her friends were chatting, two more customers arrived. They didn’t turn them away just because it was almost the end of their shift.
If a customer’s service extended beyond their work hours, they would automatically receive compensation for special overtime. They usually never used up their entire monthly overtime allowance anyway.
Liu Meizhu finished the customer’s nails at exactly 5:23 PM, just squeaking in before the end of her shift.
"Shift’s over."
The five employees for the evening shift began to arrive.
After leaving the nail salon, Liu Meizhu and two of her closer friends went for a stroll through the supermarket.
Since her children were in the daycare center, she didn’t have to worry about looking after them at all. She visited them three times a week, and the rest of the time, she and her husband were free to enjoy their lives together.
Liu Meizhu, intending to buy a few bags of potato chips, went to the chip aisle. She stared at the somewhat unfamiliar shelf. ’Did they stop carrying that brand of tomato-flavored chips?’
After a careful search, she realized they weren’t gone; the packaging had just been changed.
Holding a can of the chips, Liu Meizhu asked a nearby store employee, "Excuse me, what happened to the Shan State chips that used to come in a bag?"
The employee smiled and shrugged. "None of them have plastic packaging anymore. It’s all cans now."
Liu Meizhu scanned the shelves and saw that there were indeed only pull-tab cans or cardboard canisters (with an inner aluminum foil lining).
Liu Meizhu wasn’t particularly surprised by this.
It was mainly because at supermarkets owned by Homo Sapiens Company, many products came in aluminum cans, cardboard-foil canisters, glass bottles, tin cans, or paper-foil bags; plastic was rarely used.
She checked the price. A 500-gram can of chips was still 0.4 yuan.
Furthermore, there was a golden "0.1" printed on the can. As a frequent shopper at Fengrao House, Liu Meizhu knew very well that this golden number represented a recycling rebate of 0.1 yuan.
The vast majority of packaging for daily necessities and prepackaged foods produced by Homo Sapiens Company was recyclable and reusable.
Every week, Liu Meizhu would typically take her accumulated collection of bottles and cans to a recycling station to sell them, which provided a nice bit of extra income.
These recycling stations weren’t filthy garbage dumps, but rather dedicated storefronts set up on various city blocks, complete with staff and automated recycling machines.
Homo Sapiens Company’s profit margins in the prepackaged food sector were quite high, thanks to its powerful industrial system and recycling industry.
For liquid foods like milk and juice, the company used glass bottles instead of cartons from the Swedish company Tetra Pak, thus avoiding patent fees.
Plus, the glass bottles were reusable. The company’s low-temperature glass technology was also extremely cheap, so every time a glass bottle was reused, the packaging cost dropped a little more.
After several years of this cycle, many glass bottles had been reused dozens of times, driving packaging costs down even further.
After grabbing a few cans of chips, Liu Meizhu pushed her cart toward the meat section.
Arriving at the meat section, she discovered the packaging there had changed as well, but this change was rather unexpected.
Here, they had actually switched to using large numbers of clear plastic containers, replacing the previous glass containers and canned packaging. They were even using vacuum-sealed plastic bags.
Liu Meizhu was completely baffled. ’Now what’s this all about?’
The employee in the meat section explained, "It’s because of the emergence of a fungus that can decompose plastic. So now, plastic can be used for perishable fresh foods and frozen, vacuum-sealed items."
"Oh, I see," Liu Meizhu said, the realization dawning on her.
Even though the plastic-decomposing fungus in tropical regions could break down a polyethylene bag in about eight months, it wouldn’t have any impact on fresh food with a shelf life of a day or two, or on frozen, vacuum-sealed products.
Liu Meizhu then asked, "Does that mean all plastic products are becoming useless?"
The employee thought for a moment. "Not exactly, but things like synthetic clothing, artificial leather, and toothbrushes will certainly have their lifespans shortened. The company is already working on a solution, so there’s no need to worry too much."
Hearing this, Liu Meizhu, though not overly concerned, still hurried to the clothing section on the second floor.
Sure enough, all clothing labeled as synthetic fiber was part of a massive clearance sale, going for just a tenth of the original price.
She had no interest in the synthetic clothing now, however. She walked straight over to the racks labeled "Natural Materials."
On them hung clothes made of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and blended fabrics.
Although these fabrics were all labeled as natural, that didn’t mean they came from natural sources. Homo Sapiens Company’s regulations simply required the material composition to be identical to its natural counterpart to earn the "natural material" label.
For instance, the silk pajamas in Liu Meizhu’s hands—a four-piece set—cost only 15 yuan. If they were made from genuinely natural silk, the price would be at least 60 yuan.
This was clearly silk fabric made from artificial silkworm thread.
Liu Meizhu grabbed three sets of the silk pajamas in her size and then picked out a few more sets for her husband and two children.
She also grabbed a few outfits made from a finely spun composite linen. After being treated with modern techniques, this linen was nearly as soft as cotton, though it had less stretch. It was extremely comfortable to wear in Southeast Asia.
Next, she bought some pig-bristle toothbrushes, finely woven towels, and a small, wood-framed mirror.
The bristles on the pig-bristle toothbrushes were, in fact, also artificial. The vast majority of animal hairs used by Homo Sapiens Company were technologically replicated.
As for everything else, Liu Meizhu planned to discuss it with her husband when she got home. They would make a list of things to replace with natural-material alternatives.
At the supermarket exit, she placed her pile of goods into a special delivery container, inserted her employee card, and tapped "Confirm."
The delivery container was carried up to the third floor of the supermarket on a conveyor belt.
Out on the street, a long, narrow, suspended track ran high above. This track wasn’t for passengers but was used exclusively for transporting goods.
The items Liu Meizhu had just purchased at Fengrao House were now being loaded into one of the freight cars on that track.
By the time Liu Meizhu took the bus back to her apartment building, her phone buzzed with a notification: her delivery had arrived at the temporary storage room on the third floor.
She went up to the temporary storage room on the third floor and inserted her employee card into the pickup terminal. A locker door popped open automatically, revealing the items she had just bought at Fengrao House.
She grabbed a small trolley, placed the container on it, and took the elevator up to her apartment. As long as she returned the empty container to the recycling room in the storage area on time, the delivery company would come and collect it.
"Honey, I’m home."
Chen Yanxiu, who was soaking in the bath, called out curiously, "Did you work overtime again today?"
Liu Meizhu casually replied as she stuffed groceries into their large refrigerator, "Nope, just went for a spin around the supermarket. They changed a lot of the packaging today. I heard it’s because of that fungus from Tokyo."
"The Tokyo fungus? The factory’s dealing with that too. We’ve been replacing some of the plastic components recently. This whole thing is having a pretty big impact."
Chen Yanxiu picked up a long-handled electric back brush and started scrubbing his back.
In the kitchen, Liu Meizhu was about to fry some beef patties when the range hood gave an automated reminder: *Please wear your anti-fume helmet.*
’What a hassle...’ Liu Meizhu grumbled, retrieving an anti-fume helmet from a lower cabinet. The property management company had delivered it a few days prior.
Though she complained, Liu Meizhu put it on. She was afraid of dying; according to data released by the Medical Department, cooking fumes were a major contributor to lung cancer in women.
The anti-fume helmet wasn’t difficult to wear. Its design was similar to an astronaut’s helmet—an almost completely transparent sphere, with a special harness that rested on the shoulders and back so her head didn’t have to bear the weight.
And as she used it, Liu Meizhu found that the helmet also protected her from splattering hot oil, which was very useful when frying food or chopping onions.
Coming out of the bathroom after his shower, Chen Yanxiu chuckled at the sight of his wife looking like a spaceman.
"I hear property management is going to be renovating homes with open-plan kitchens in batches soon. Our kitchen should be included."
"How much will it cost?"
"It’s free. The company’s covering the cost for us."
Hearing that it was free, Liu Meizhu had no objections.
After all, since the Medical Department’s public report, many families had grown anxious about their open-plan kitchens. This was especially true for families with children, who would either send their kids for a temporary stay at the daycare or simply make them play out on the balcony during mealtimes.
Flipping a beef patty with a wooden spatula, Liu Meizhu asked, "Honey, should we start replacing all the plastic stuff in the house?"
"We’ll definitely have to. That fungus is highly transmissible, and we’re in one of the hardest-hit areas here in Southeast Asia. We’ll have to replace everything sooner or later."
Liu Meizhu flipped the patty. "Then you should see what needs replacing. I already bought some natural-fiber clothes, new toothbrushes, and a little mirror at the store."
Lying on the sofa, Chen Yanxiu opened his phone, logged into the Internal Affairs Department’s announcement page, and found the "Guide to Replacing Household Plastic Products."
According to the guide, the first thing on the list was the home’s electrical system. They wouldn’t have to handle that themselves; Nangyang Power Grid would arrange for personnel to come and perform the replacement.
Other appliances would similarly be recalled in batches by their manufacturers and gradually replaced with new models.
After reading for a while, Chen Yanxiu realized he didn’t need to worry about much at all. The company had already arranged everything. All they had to do was follow instructions when the time came.
He went back to lying on the sofa and watching TV, not the least bit anxious.
Meanwhile, ordinary people in other regions had to face the problem of their household plastics degrading all on their own, which would only add to their financial burdens.
Presumably, the number of ordinary people coming to work for Homo Sapiens Company would only continue to grow.