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China: Trying to Ban Plastic Bags

Effectiveness of plastic bag ban policy is questionable - researcher

27.01.2010 |Interfax

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At the end of 2007, the Chinese government announced a new policy that prohibited stores from providing their customers with free plastic bags. The goal of the policy, which took effect on June 1, 2008, was reduce the consumption of plastic bags, which are believed to be a large source of wasted energy and a threat to the environment. But questions remain about just how effective the policy has been over the last year and a half.

In an interview with Interfax, Mao Da, a doctoral student and founder of a community research group studying the policy, discusses the underlying problems of the policy and how effective it has been at reducing plastic bag consumption.  "If the situation does not change, it will be difficult to return to the time when most retailers and citizens were following the policy," Mao said.
 
Shangai. December 2. Interfax-China. - Almost a year and a half since China instituted its ban on free plastic bags, the policy is still not being uniformly followed and may be losing ground as the public gets used to paying for plastic bags, an environmental researcher told Interfax.

The government took a two-pronged approach to limit plastic bag use in the policy, banning the production, sale and consumption of plastic bags less than 0.025 millimeters thick and prohibiting stores from giving away plastic bags to their customers.

Mao Da, an environment history student of Beijing Normal University, founded the Plastic Bag Policy Research Group last year to study the policy when it looked as if China's environmental community wasn't interested in tracking its effects. Although some environmental non-governmental organizations (NGO) held workshops on the policy after it was announced, they failed follow up.

Mao believes that the government failed to consult the groups that the policy would affect the most - the country's citizens and retailers. "Thus, it was born flawed," he said.  One of the underlying questions about the policy is why the government decided to use thickness as a standard.

"We have not seen detailed research about how plastic bag thickness relates to consumption," Mao said. "Without a reliable reason for this standard, implementing the policy will be problematic." The only reason that Mao can see for banning thin plastic bags is the fact that customers tend to just throw them away after one use. But the question remains whether thin bags are inherently more wasteful than thicker bags. Although thinner bags are more likely to be thrown away, they require fewer raw materials to produce.

The ban on free plastic bags has led to other concerns, such as whether retailers are changing too much for plastic bags. Mao's research team surveyed the five largest supermarket chains in Beijing: Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Wu Mart, Jingkelong and Vanguard about their accounting of plastic bag costs. Four replied. Three of the companies told researchers that they now record bag plastic costs only as a sales expense, in effect, changing the cost of plastic bags from an implied cost to an explicit cost for consumers, Mao said.

Mao believes that the public should be confident that the cost of plastic bags will become an explicit cost for consumers once all retailers change how they account for them. But the question remains of whether making customers pay for plastic bags reduces plastic bag consumption. Mao believes that the policy's success hinges on this question. If plastic bag consumption continues to grow in spite of the policy, the government and the citizenry need to reevaluate whether consumers are paying a high enough price.

Mao said the research team also looked at how the policy was being followed in street markets. "There are two problems with street markets," Mao said. "The first is that they are still giving out plastic bags less than 0.025 millimeters thick. The second is that they do not charge for plastic bags." Mao believes that the government should not bother holding street markets to the same requirements as larger retailers like supermarkets because of the difficulty in enforcing the policy. The only way Mao sees that street market will follow the policy is to encourage community organizations to set up demonstration markets in cooperation with shop keepers.

Plastic bag consumption has fallen since the policy took effect, but it is becoming less effective as customers get used to paying for plastic bags.The goal of the policy was to create a disincentive for using plastic bags. However, Mao believes that plastic bags remain cheap enough that consumers might only temporarily reduce their consumption if the government does not continue to promote the policy. Furthermore, the government has not set any benchmarks to evaluate whether the policy is successful. "If the situation does not change, it will be difficult to return to the time when most retailers and citizens were following the policy," Mao said.

Mao's research team has attempted to work with the government on the policy. At a workshop in May, the team exchanged opinions on the policy with Li Jing, deputy director of NDRC's Resource and Environment Department, who helped create the policy. The team later invited Li to attend another workshop in November, but she failed to attend. Though the research team has encountered some setbacks when dealing with government agencies and retailers, Mao said that they will continue their work. They plan to cooperate more with other organizations in the future. The team cooperated with six NGOs this year on a survey covering six Chinese cities, Harbin, Lanzhou, Zhengzhou, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou.

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