A Ban on Plastic Bags: Where Do We Put our Trash?

Problem:

• Before June 1st, 2008, whether you bought groceries at the local grocery store or a couple apples from the vendor on the street, you usually took home your purchased goods in a plastic bag. More often than not the seller might double bag your items for the sole reason that the very bag they first gave you is so thin you can see through it. So, considering the insane population here in China combined with the double bagging practice mentioned above, it shouldn't come as a surprise to find that Chinese citizens use close to 3 billion plastic bags a day...right? Is that number serious?! It's difficult to believe, but what's even harder to fathom is where all these plastic bags went once they completed their duty of transporting goods from the store to the home. Many, unfortunately, made their way to the streets where a phenomenon known as "white pollution" came into being. We haven't seen much of this here in our small town in Xinjiang, but it is hard to miss in bigger cities such as Beijing, Kunming, Xi'an, and many others.

Solution:

• Ban them!! In a step lauded by environmentalist everywhere, the Chinese government made a bold move in banning the use of certain very thin bags and making it illegal to give away for free the regulation-sized plastic bags we take for granted in America (although a similar ban is in place in San Fransisco right now). Any shop that even thinks the dirty thought of handing out a free plastic bag will be slapped with an ugly fine and laughed at by all.
• Charge them!! A small fee for plastic bags has been implemented for all of those horrible, tree-hating people who can't stand to part with their plastic bags.

Effect:

• Those living in China and reading this know that I've waited quite a while to post about this - it's is old news here! I wanted to wait, though, to gauge 1) if the government would follow through and 2) how the public (and I!) would react. Here's what's happened:

1. The funniest thing was seeing people walking out of the store with their arms bursting with groceries as if to say "Excuse me! You think I'm going to pay you an extra 5 cents for a plastic bag? I DON'T THINK SO!". Bravo to them. I guess. As you can see in this cartoon, they looked a bit silly.
   
2. While news reports have noted that there has been an amazing 80% drop in bags consumed last month, most people fail to realize that there was a sharp increase in garbage bag sales! For the first time in our two years living here in Xinjiang, we have bought trash bags! We, like many here in China, used to use the bags from the stores for our trash but have now been forced to actually use bags designed to hold trash. It's an interesting concept and one we're still getting accustomed to.
3. We've now bought a cloth bag like the one you see Tiff holding in the picture above. These are very popular now (a month later), but it took a while to catch on. We now bring our bags into the store, buy our goods, then stuff our own bags to carry home. If you forget, you must either pay the fine for a plastic bag or storm out of the store with your arms full (see Effect #1 & picture).
4. Finally, I've notice that not everybody abides by this new law. Grocery stores, 7-11 style stores, and department stores are following the law closely, but any place that isn't big enough to have a cash register will probably still provide you with a free bag. Will they be punished? They haven't yet, and I doubt they will, but this law is putting out of business the very manufacturers that provide them their plastic bags, therefore it might take a couple of months but soon they too will join the ranks of the law-abiding businesses.

So there you have it folks. Seems like there's a little more "bite" being added to all this "cleaning up the environment talk" being done by China. So what might be next up on the China environmentalist agenda? No one's for sure, but my guess is doing away with disposable chopsticks. I'll keep you posted.