The China Teaching Web

Have something to add? Join the discussion! Click here to leave a comment. No registration required!

Click Here to Subsribe to the 'The Vance Report' Feed

Why the No Plastic Bag Policy is Working in China

While most Chinese people appear to be taking the government’s ‘no more free plastic bags’ policy in stride, there are still a few frustrated shoppers who are suffering from ‘plastic bag’ withdrawal. A foreign friend of mine recently witnessed a lady at a local supermarket loudly berating a cashier because she strongly felt that she should not have to pay for a plastic bag. Apparently, the 2 jiao that it would have cost her to buy a bag was simply too much to fork over. Other frustrated shoppers have been observed abandoning their carts full of food and other items and walking out of some Chinese supermarkets with disgusted looks on their faces. This environmental policy, which went into effect on June 1st, requires stores in China to charge customers for plastic bags that are thinner than .025 millimeters; most bags used in stores around China fall under this category. But the vast majority of Chinese citizens seem to be adjusting well to the new policy as they fill their baskets and cloth bags with purchased items.

“I don’t mind the new policy,” an adult student remarked to me today. “It’s a good thing for China and the environment. It might just take some people time to adjust.” She and most other Chinese people I have talked to this week welcome the new policy saying that it shows to the world that China does in fact care about the environment.

China is not the first country to restrict the distribution of these often taken-for-granted plastic bags. In enacting this policy, China follows in the footsteps of other countries such as Russia, Ireland, and South Africa. However, this Chinese environmental policy is very significant for two reasons. First, as the largest consumer by far of plastic bags in the world, the move will most definitely have a tangible and positive impact on China’s environment. Second, as the largest country in the world, China’s enactment and enforcement of this policy may encourage other countries to follow the same environmentally friendly path.

What is perhaps most remarkable for some observers thus far is the success that the Chinese government seems to have achieved in enforcing the new policy. While the Chinese government has in the past enacted some of the best environmental laws in the world, its attempts to bring companies into compliance have been dismal at best. Too much corruption and chaos at the local levels of government have often rendered Beijing’s environmental policies powerless. However, from all reports thus far in China, it appears that the vast majority of stores in China, both big and small, are adhering to this new policy.

What makes this environmental policy different than others in China? Quite simply, most stores in China, while they may have initially protested the policy, are more than willing to comply. It is not as if the plastic bags that stores doled out to customers were ever really free of charge. The costs of the bags were passed along to the customers in the prices of items that they purchased. Under the new policy, a store can now charge money for plastic bags that the customers were most likely already paying for. The stores can also profit from the sale of environmentally safe bags which are now being sold at the checkout counters of thousands of stores throughout China. Sure, there might be a few disgruntled customers at the outset, but in the long run, stores are only going to profit from this new policy. There may very well have even been stores in China that wanted to enact such a policy on their own long ago but were afraid that it would drive customers away. Now that every store in China must comply with the new policy, there is really no reason to fight it. The only entity that will really ’suffer’ from this policy are the manufacturers who produce the plastic bags.

China is still ‘light years’ away from becoming a model country for a clean and safe environment in the world. After all, what country can really claim that distinction today? But the ‘no plastic bag’ policy, implemented just a few short months before the opening ceremony of the Olympics, does send a strong message to the world that Beijing is making strides to ‘clean up’ the environment in China. Hopefully, the success of this policy will encourage the Chinese government to follow through with some of the other policies that it has enacted and bring China into a position where it can be a world leader in the environmental arena.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Don't miss...

• Where Have We Been?
• Teaching English to Prostitutes in China
• Car Mechanics in China
• Traveling by Airplane in China
• Happy Dragon Boat Day from the China Teaching Web
• RR’s Weekly China Roundup
• National Day and Free Crabs Dominate the Weekly China Roundup