Does a video montage show how factories in India make artificial rice out of recycled plastic? No, that's not true: These videos are real, but what the factories are making has been misrepresented. Some video clips show plastic being recycled to make plastic pellets for use in other plastic products -- but not in food. Other video clips show the manufacturing process to make "artificial rice," a vitamin-fortified food that resembles rice, but made with ingredients like corn, wheat and even broken rice -- not plastic.
The misleading video was posted on Instagram on November 21, 2024. The post was captioned:
Fake rice out of India made from plastic waste. ⚠️ 🍚 🇮🇳 🤮
#fake #food #plastic #waste #garbage #rice #artificial #processing #plant #india #wtf #health #wellness #truth #unveiled
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#instagram #foryoupage #fyp #foryou #viral #love #funny #memes #instagood #fashion #photooftheday #photography #art #beautiful #nature
A red text box at the top of the video reads:
How Fake Rice Is Made From Plastics
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Thu Dec 05 22:19:02 2024 UTC)
During the 1:30-minute-long video montage the narrator says:
Oh what the fuck? Tell me it's not true. Rice, derived from plastic and garbage! Ugh. Check out these dudes man from India in this processing plant just piling straight plastic garbage into this mixer and turning it into 'edible' rice. I mean are you going to put this stuff on your plate? On your kid's plate? Get real man, fucking disgusting. Check this shit out. Nah dude, nah. Even being in that plant man, breathing in those particles got to have irreversible health effects, let alone eating this shit. Look at this stuff man. No nah. People are actually buying this stuff and consuming it and it's made from garbage. What the actual fuck? Look at this stuff.
The video opens with a clip showing a white substance coming out of an extruder. There is a small watermark on this video that says "SUNPRING." The "about us" page on the sunpring.com website explains that this China-based international company makes food manufacturing extrusion equipment:
About Sunpring Food extruders are used in food processing. Generally, food extruders are used in the process for mixing food ingredients. These machines can also be used to cut foods by a specified size. Food extruders helped businessmen get the desired shape and taste of their food products.
One of the company's offerings is an artificial rice-making machine. On the site, "business benefits" of artificial rice are described, including the ability to repurpose broken grains of rice into a higher-value product. The first point on the list describes the potential for a higher nutritional value with assorted and enriched food ingredients -- not plastic.
1. Nutrition Rich. During the manufacturing process, the food supplier can add corn, millet, wheat, oats, soybean, starch vitamin, nutrient(calcium,zinc,iron,etc) in artificial rice. Usually, artificial rice's nutrients value is 5-10 times than regular rice.
The Lead Stories composite image below shows the opening scene of the montage on Instagram (below left), and a screenshot from 0:08 seconds into a promotional video (below right) titled, "Artificial rice extruder nutritional rice making machine FRK fortified rice machine" posted on the SunPring Extrusion YouTube channel on August 13, 2021.
(Source: Lead Stories composite image with Instagram and YouTube screenshots taken on Thu Dec 05 23:06:46 2024 UTC)
After showing several clips of the artificial rice making machine, the montage on Instagram switches to showing some clips with a different watermark. The watermark says "Smartest Workers." This video creator has channels on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Their YouTube bio explains their focus:
Welcome to Smartest Workers! We are an entertainment brand dedicated to showcasing the incredible skills and talents of workers from around the globe. Our channel features videos of workers in action, demonstrating their expertise, precision, and efficiency in their respective fields.
The clips from the montage on Instagram (one pictured below left) can be found in a YouTube video posted on September 24, 2023, by Smartest Workers titled, "Plastic's New Purpose: Unveiling the Recycling Journey 🔄" The YouTube screenshot (pictured below right) comes from the 0:39 mark in the video, showing a plastic recycling plant that turns used plastic into nurdles, the small pellets that are a raw material used to manufacture other plastic products.
(Source: Lead Stories composite image made with Instagram and YouTube screenshots taken on Fri Dec 06 00:18:34 2024 UTC)
At the time this was written, a similar claim had previously been reviewed by AFP Fact Check in 2023, and in the Hindi language by vishvasnews.com in 2023 and again in 2024. In this case, the same video was misrepresented as showing artificial wheat made of plastic.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims related to plastic recycling can be found here.
