Image: istockphoto.com/Dan Moore
The regulation comes only about 15 years after shopkeepers started handing out cheap, flimsy plastic bags to customers. But "white pollution," a reference to the colour of many of the bags, has cluttered landfills and become a constant eyesore.
"Our country consumes a huge amount of plastic shopping bags each year. While plastic shopping bags provide convenience to consumers, this has caused a serious waste of energy and resources and environmental pollution because of excessive usage, inadequate recycling and other reasons," said the State Council, China's cabinet.
The regulation comes as Beijing steps up efforts to fight pollution that has accompanied China's breakneck economic growth. Factories and plants churn out low-cost products for the world's consumers but have also severely fouled the country's air and water.
Beginning June 1, all supermarkets, department stores and shops will be prohibited from giving out free plastic bags, the State Council said. Stores must clearly mark the price of plastic shopping bags and are banned from tacking that price onto products.
The production, sale and use of ultra-thin plastic bags was also banned, the State Council notice said.
The regulation, dated Dec. 31 and posted on a government website Tuesday, called for "a return to cloth bags and shopping baskets to reduce the use of plastic bags."
It also urged waste-collectors to step up recycling efforts to reduce the amount of bags burned or buried. Finance authorities were told to consider tax measures to discourage plastic bag production and sale.
Internationally, legislation to discourage plastic bag use has been passed in parts of South Africa, Ireland and Taiwan, where authorities either tax shoppers who use them or impose fees on companies that distribute them. Bangladesh already bans them, as do at least 30 remote Alaskan villages.
Last year, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban petroleum-based plastic grocery bags.
Green Living Network
