Cartoon: Zhu Huiqing

This year marks the 9th year since the "Plastic Ban" was officially implemented. In some places, the situation of the plastic ban is becoming increasingly embarrassing, and many small shops still provide free plastic bags. What do you think of the implementation effect of the plastic ban?

Last week, a survey conducted by the Social Survey Center of China Youth Daily and Questionnaire.com on 2,007 respondents showed that 41.9% of the respondents believed that the "Plastic Ban" was implemented well, 31.6% of the respondents believed that it was average, and 26.4% of the respondents said that the effect was poor. Vegetable markets (69.4%), street vendors (65.5%) and supermarkets (56.3%) were said to be the places where plastic bags were used the most. 86.4% of the respondents believed that the use of plastic bags needed to be further regulated.

Farm markets (69.4%), street vendors (65.5%) and supermarkets (56.3%) are said to use the most plastic bags

Zhang Hongyan, a 35-year-old supermarket worker in Beijing, said that many people have developed the habit of bringing their own shopping bags to supermarkets. "The plastic ban has produced a great effect. It's just that the enforcement has been a little lax in the past two years." Zhang Hongyan said that the consumption level is rising, and some young people don't care about a few cents, and sometimes they will buy for convenience.

Zhang Hongyan said that the vegetable and fruit areas are the places where plastic bags are used the most. "These must be classified and packaged for easy weighing. There is no way to not use plastic bags, and there is no way to limit their use. The self-service hand-torn plastic bags in the supermarket every day are the most consumed." Zhang Hongyan admitted that some people think that the plastic bags used to weigh fruits are free, so they will tear off a lot of them and take them away. "Now the supermarket can only put the plastic bags closer to the staff to remind consumers to take them as needed."

Liu Yufen (pseudonym), a 61-year-old retired teacher, usually brings her own shopping bags when she goes to the supermarket, but she still needs plastic bags from supermarkets or merchants when she buys vegetables and fruits. "I can't say I bought two potatoes and I have to hold them in my hands. They are all soil and can't be mixed." She believes that the "plastic ban" has provided some merchants with an excuse to buy and sell plastic bags. "Plastic bags are still used everywhere and have not decreased, especially in the vegetable market." She said that there are still many commodities with excessive packaging problems, "It's really a waste."

Do people care about spending a few cents to buy plastic bags when shopping? 60.1% of the respondents would care, while 39.9% of the respondents said they didn't care. In which occasions are plastic bags used most frequently? Vegetable markets (69.4%), street vendors (65.5%) and supermarkets (56.3%) are said to use the most, followed by express delivery and takeaways (32.9%) and shopping malls (22.1%).

Regarding the implementation effect of the "Plastic Ban", 41.9% of the respondents thought it was good, 31.6% thought it was average, and 26.4% said it was poor.

Liu Junhai, a professor at the Law School of Renmin University of China, believes that the implementation effect of the "Plastic Ban" is not very ideal. From the current social situation, it is basically the merchants who make money, the consumers who pay the bill, and the plastic bags are used at will. This is not the original intention of the "Plastic Ban". The original intention of the "Plastic Ban" is to curb and eliminate the prevalence of plastic bags. But now, plastic bags are still produced, sold, and used, and the merchants still make money.

71.6% of the respondents believed that consumers did not have environmental awareness and did not take the initiative to comply with the "Plastic Ban"

The "Plastic Ban" has been implemented for 9 years. Some people say that the effect is not as good as it was at the beginning, or even "existing in name only". Liu Junhai believes that there are four main reasons for this: "First, there has been no effect evaluation during and after the policy was formulated and implemented for 9 years. Without evaluation, there will be no greater progress. Second, businesses are profit-driven and basically regard the "Plastic Ban" as a way to make profits. While charging for plastic bags, they did not provide consumers with free environmentally friendly shopping bags. At that time, businesses should have been required to limit the sale of Plastic bags, on the other hand, require them to provide free paper bags or cloth bags at a suitable price. Third, consumers are irrational in their consumption of plastic bags and do not care about buying plastic bags for a few cents. Not enough has been done to promote consumers to use environmentally friendly paper bags and cloth bags and recycle them. ¡±

The implementation effect of the "plastic restriction order" is not satisfactory. 71.6% of the respondents believe that consumers have not established environmental awareness and do not actively comply; 62.4% of the respondents directly pointed out that the supervision is not in place and it is difficult to establish a plastic restriction environment; 52.3% of the respondents believe that the policy lacks specific regulations and guidance for implementation; 41.3% of the respondents pointed out that retail merchants still take the initiative to provide plastic bags for free.

Liu Junhai believes that in terms of regulating the use of plastic bags, the "hand of the government" is missing. Liu Junhai introduced that when the "plastic restriction order" was implemented, it was understood by some places as "selling". It was believed that as long as it cost money to consume, consumers would definitely not be willing to use it. After a long time, merchants would naturally not be able to sell it, and they wanted to use the "invisible hand" of the market to regulate the use of plastic bags. This design concept is good, but it does not solve the problem because it is not feasible. In the eyes of many consumers, plastic bags are a rigid demand. If you don't bring shopping bags, you can only buy plastic bags from merchants. Moreover, with the improvement of residents' living standards, a few cents can no longer be used as a means of market regulation.

"As long as it is continuously produced, there will definitely be a large number of uses. Now farmers' markets are still using a large number of substandard plastic bags, which has not been curbed from the beginning. Moreover, industrial policies and regulatory policies are not matched." Liu Junhai said, "The fact that manufacturers produce plastic bags in violation of regulations but have not been found out is the failure of supervision by regulatory departments and the lack of administrative punishment measures. Whether macro-control measures such as tax rates, interest rates, and government procurement are matched to serve the macro-control policy of limiting plastic is also worth discussing."

86.4% of respondents believe that the use of plastic bags needs to be further regulated

The poll shows that 86.4% of respondents believe that the use of plastic bags needs to be further regulated, and 36.1% of respondents bluntly say it is very necessary.

Zhang Hongyan hopes that the government will strengthen publicity, improve consumers' environmental awareness, and consciously reduce the use of shopping bags. "Secondly, more high-quality plastic bags should be produced so that everyone can recycle and reduce waste."

Liu Yufen believes that the supply should be cut off from the source. "Before there were plastic bags, people would carry baskets to buy vegetables and wrap food in kraft paper. It was not inconvenient and there would be no white garbage. Later, plastic bags were made. It was convenient, but the pollution was also serious."

To effectively reduce the use of plastic bags, 56.0% of the respondents suggested strengthening the supervision and implementation of the plastic restriction order; 54.7% of the respondents believed that scientific research and innovation should be strengthened to develop and upgrade environmentally friendly plastic bags; 51.2% of the respondents suggested that specific places should be forced to prohibit buying and selling; 51.0% of the respondents hoped that the policy would plug the gap in details; 39.9% of the respondents hoped to strengthen citizens' environmental protection publicity and education and consciously reduce the use of plastic bags.

Liu Junhai suggested changing the "plastic restriction order" to a "plastic ban order." "The production and use of plastic bags shall be banned, and plastic bags shall be replaced by paper bags, recyclable cloth bags, woven bags, etc. Green business models and lifestyles such as green production, green sales and green consumption shall be used as the important guiding ideology for reviewing, reflecting on and improving the 'plastic restriction order'."

"Industrial policies, regulatory policies and macro-control measures shall be coordinated. Assessment, supervision and administrative penalties shall all keep up. Hearings and expert seminars are necessary, and consumer representatives, environmental protection organization representatives, enterprise representatives, expert representatives and others shall be invited to discuss and identify problems in implementation, blind spots in system design, shortcomings in policy implementation, reasons for regulatory failure, prescribe the right remedy, improve system design, and ensure that good policies and systems take root." Liu Junhai said, "We must combine environmental protection, resource protection, the construction of a resource-saving society, an environmentally friendly society, the construction of a socialist new countryside, and a farmer-friendly society to create a resource-friendly, environmentally friendly and farmer-friendly market ecological environment that is shared by consumers, operators and the vast majority of farmers."

Among the respondents, 33.9% live in first-tier cities, 40.4% live in second-tier cities, 19.9% live in third- and fourth-tier cities, 4.3% live in small towns and county towns, and 1.4% live in rural areas. People born in the 1990s account for 16.1%, people born in the 1980s account for 51.8%, people born in the 1970s account for 24.2%, people born in the 1960s account for 6.6%, and people born in the 1950s account for 1.0%.

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