The environmental challenges that China faces today are significantly more daunting when one considers the difficulties of implementing broad sweeping legislation and ensuring directives are enforced at the local and provincial level. Even with the most well-intentioned legislation often seems to loose its teeth when put into effect across China.

In January of this year, the State Council (China’s cabinet) passed a measure which banned the manufacture, sale and use of plastic bags less than 0.025mm thick. Stores are permitted to sell more durable plastic bags and are encouraged to make a return to cloth bags and baskets in an effort to reduce so-called ‘white pollution’.
With the ban going into effect in June, two months prior to the Olympic Games, effective implementation was more likely as part of Beijing’s push for a ‘green Olympics’. However, like many of the more effective ‘greening’ initiatives around the world, this ban appeals directly to people’s pocketbooks.

I hadn’t heard about the ban until I arrived at the check-out counter of the local supermarket that first week of June and was asked if I wanted to buy a bag to hold my groceries. Three mao (~4cents) would get me the standard thicker grade plastic grocery bag while 1.2 yuan (~17cents) would get me the re-usable red cloth version that was hung prominently at each counter. I sprung for the cloth.

The decision was simple enough for me, but I earn significantly more in a month than the average shopper here. The argument that it would only take four trips to the store for the cloth bag to pay for itself would often fall on deaf ears here where convenience is highly valued and, more importantly, short-term economic gain seems to rule all … and this is without positive long-term environmental impact thrown into the equation.

On a grocery run last week I spent a few extra minutes with the bagger after check-out. The young woman said that most people still choose to buy the plastic version ‘because it’s cheaper’. My simple 4 trips at 4cents/bag math just made her laugh and shrug: ‘I dunno why’. Still I was heartened as I stood outside the main entrance for a few minutes. Easily 1 in 10 shoppers entering the supermarket had a handful of red bag crumpled in their hand and probably a greater number were exiting with items stuffed into the sturdy cloth bags. I also noticed a number of people had avoided bags altogether and were simply carrying their haul in small armfuls (sometimes split amongst family members). There is little doubt that the ban has been effective in reducing the number of plastic bags in circulation, but I wonder how many of those red bag shoppers made the shift (even if only in part) for environmental reasons ...

  A number of countries including South Africa, Taiwan and Ireland have similar legislation aimed at reducing the use of plastic bags. And last year the oft progressive city of San Francisco became the first in the US to ban use of petroleum-based plastic grocery bags. Somehow the United States remains remarkably behind in this matter, even other developing countries like Rwanda and Bangladesh have also banned plastic bags. Since it began taxing these bags in 2002, Ireland has reduced plastic bag consumption by 90%.

Martin Cullen, Ireland’s Environment Minister, said that the tax on plastic bags has not only changed consumer behavior, but also raised national consciousness about the role of the individual in collective environmental challenges like waste management. China is expected to save 37 million barrels of oil each year as a result of their ban of free plastic bags. This is great and we could certainly afford to take a page out of China’s book on this one, but this ban will have a much greater effect when it starts raising Chinese national consciousness about the critical role of the individual in confronting today's environmental challenges.