China gains by plastic bag ban

A little more than one year after a nationwide ban on plastic bags came into force, China has saved the equivalent of three million tonnes of crude oil thanks to a huge reduction in the use of plastic, said a government agency.

Last June, the government introduced a nationwide ban on the use of ultra-thin plastic bags (those thinner than 0.025 mm) and stopped all supermarkets from giving away free bags. The move surprised many given China’s poor record with environmental issues and few countries, even in the West, have introduced similar bans.

Since then, the use of bags has fallen by two-thirds in China’s stores, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top economic planning body. The ban has saved the country 40 billion plastic bags in the past 12 months, estimates the China Chain Store and Franchise Association.

“White pollution”, a term used here to describe the huge consumption and wastage of plastic, is becoming a growing problem in China. China consumes more plastic bags than any other country, using 37 million barrels of crude oil on plastic bag production every year. The NDRC said the ban has now saved between 2.4 million and 3 million tonnes of crude oil, and would also cut carbon dioxide emissions by up to 9.6 million tonnes annually.

For a country that consumes a million tonnes of oil a day, the reduction is still a drop in the ocean. But environmental groups and conservationists here have still welcomed the ban, arguing that the larger and more important message is raising the low public awareness of environmental issues.

The ban has also been far from ubiquitous. Enforcement has been limited to supermarkets, which face regular inspections and 5000 Yuan (Rs. 35,000) fines, though street-side shops still give away free bags. But with stores now charging 0.20 Yuan (Rs. 1.40) for a bag, it has become increasingly common to see shoppers in Beijing and Shanghai bring their own cloth bags to stores, a practice that was unheard of in China a year ago.

“For us to address our environmental problems, the first step is public awareness,” says environmental activist Wu Dengming, who has fought a number of high-profile water pollution cases. “The biggest challenge is getting people to understand environmental issues and raise awareness, and that’s slowly beginning to change.”

The ban was one of a number of small-scale, local-level steps China announced this past year to reduce energy consumption. The government has in recent months also announced subsidies for the purchase of energy-efficient home appliances, and launched large-scale energy conversion campaigns in Beijing and Shanghai to replace incandescent bulbs with energy-friendly alternatives. But there is still a lot more the country has to do if it is to achieve its ambitious target of procuring one-fifth of all its energy needs from renewable sources by 2020.