In a move I never saw coming, China has banned plastic grocery bags in all grocery stores, department stores, and markets.
China uses 3 billion plastic grocery bags every day, and this move hopes to curb useage by sixty percent over the long term. Today, the first day of the ban, useage dropped about thirty percent.
While you can still get a bag at the checkout, there are now a few regulations in place governing their dispersal. The stores must charge for the bags they give out, but are allowed to decide themselves how much they cost. Stores are still permitted to give out plastic bags that wrap meat and vegetables, for health and safety reasons.
The news tonight showed many outlets charging between ten and thirty fen for one bag. 100 fen make one yuan, and one yuan is worth about fifteen Canadian cents. To give you an idea of Chinese pricing, a can of pop costs between two and three yuan. (For a rundown of Chinese currency with pictures, click here.)
Another regulation is that the bags the stores sell at the checkout must be thicker than 0.2mm, in an attempt to encourage reuse.
I am a big fan of this new legislation, but I wonder how it will impact China's overall plastic bag production and consumption. While shopping in clothing markets in the past, I've been given random bags that seem to have been made for the European and North American markets. If China makes most of the the world's plastic bags, and I bet they probably do, it will be doubly hard to curb use, since there are already so many around.
One thing I don't like about this new ban on bags is that I will no longer be able to use my go-to Chinese phrase, Wo bu yao daitze.
This means "I don't want a bag" and I've gotten pretty good at saying it. The odd time I say it well enough, the cashier will think I know more Chinese than I do, and start talking really fast. I reply with a blank look of confused apology, grab my purchases, and take my leave.
I wish Canada would make such sweeping legislation, like China has with this new bag law. I guess the Chinese Communist Party can't be all bad!
1 comment:
Johnny, I think I'll try to incorporate this into my Canadian shopping. Most cashier's and 'bag packing technicians' look at me as if I'm crazy when I say "no bags please" at the checkout. I even have to pull out my own reusable cotton bags (made in China) and wave them around to get my point across. Maybe I'll start shouting "Wo bu yao daitze!!! Wo bu yao daitze!!!" whenever it looks like they're going for a bag. They'll be so confused and frightened that their hand will stop moving towards the plastic.
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