In the blink of an eye, it has been seven years since the ¡°charges were imposed¡± on plastic bags.

However, the plastic restriction order introduced at the end of 2008 has now exposed problems such as the difficulty in banning ultra-thin bags and the difficulty in curbing the habit of using plastic bags.

The reason is that the difference between consumer demand and laws and regulations is still an unavoidable gap. Fortunately, the public's environmental awareness is increasing. After "seven years", should the plastic restriction order also be considered for change?

A medium-sized supermarket

uses more than 30 tons of plastic bags per year

and tearing plastic bags by hand

becomes a "lawless place"

At 8:30 in the morning, a large supermarket located outside the North Fifth Ring Road had just opened. The influx of people was almost all white-haired elderly people.

Their goal is quite consistent-the fresh food area of the supermarket. Every morning, the supermarket has discounts on fresh meat and eggs, and it is also the time when the quantity is the most sufficient and the quality is the freshest.

On the shelves of the fresh food section of the supermarket, hand-torn plastic bags can be seen everywhere. It is a habit for many consumers to tear off a few plastic bags before picking vegetables and keep them in hand. In order to facilitate customers to use, the fresh meat section of the supermarket also placed torn and unfolded plastic bags for the convenience of the elderly.

"I am old and sometimes I can't open them. People do this to make it convenient for customers." Ms. Chen, who has been retired for many years, comes to the supermarket two or three times a week. She is accustomed to the scenes here and doesn't think there is anything wrong: "There was a period of time when many people took a lot of bags, but now everyone's quality is high and there are very few."

Even so, from the perspective of the "plastic restriction order", the existence of hand-torn plastic bags is already "out of the law."

In December 2007, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Notice on Restricting the Production, Sale and Use of Plastic Shopping Bags", which stipulates that from June 1, 2008, the production, sale and use of plastic shopping bags with a thickness of less than 0.025 mm will be prohibited in China; at the same time, a paid use system will be implemented in all supermarkets, shopping malls, bazaars and other commodity retail places, and plastic shopping bags shall not be provided free of charge. This notice was later called the "Plastic Restriction Order".

The hand-torn plastic bags in the supermarket obviously violated the paid use system of plastic bags in the "Notice".

"Plastic bags at the checkout counter are charged, but hand-torn ones are free. Basically, all supermarkets do this." Chen Li, the person in charge of a medium-sized supermarket in southwest Beijing, said that the popularity of hand-torn plastic bags in supermarkets has its objective demand. As the fresh food categories and even cooked food and semi-finished products in large supermarkets are expanding, the number of goods that need to be packaged in plastic bags is also gradually increasing. The emergence of hand-torn plastic bags is only for the convenience of consumers. Although the "plastic restriction order" has been implemented for nearly 7 years, it is still a "trade practice" to not charge for hand-torn plastic bags. "It is too difficult to charge. How long will it take to count them one by one?"

Behind the no-charge policy is the high use of plastic bags. According to statistics from Chen Li's supermarket, the annual use of hand-torn plastic bags alone exceeds 30 tons, which is equivalent to "giving away" more than 160 kilograms of plastic bags every day.

Everyone is used to charging a few cents

Plastic bags are easy to recycle but difficult to recycle

"There is a saying that charging is ordered, but it is not reliable to say that supermarkets make money from plastic bags online." In February 2016, the media revealed that supermarkets could earn more than 10 million yuan in profits each year by charging for plastic bags, which also surprised many consumers at the "profitability" of plastic bags. However, in Chen Li's view, such rumors have no factual basis.

According to the current charging practice, supermarkets generally charge between 30 cents and 50 cents for plastic bags, and some small fruit supermarkets or markets charge even lower. Chen Li said that the purchase price of supermarket plastic bags is also 20 cents to 30 cents each, so the profit margin is not large. "If we make 10 million yuan a year, we have to sell hundreds of millions of plastic bags. We really hope to have so many customers a year."

However, it is also true that the effect of the plastic bag ban on curbing plastic bag consumption is declining after 7 years. According to the statistics of Chen Li's supermarket, the number of charged plastic bags used in the past two years was 367,000 and 392,000 respectively, with an annual increase of nearly 10% when the number of customers received by the supermarket did not increase. "When the plastic bag ban was first introduced, many customers brought their own shopping bags. Maybe now everyone is used to it, and a few cents is not effective, so plastic bags are back in fashion."

While the effectiveness of plastic bag charges is gradually losing, the other end of the "plastic bag ban" - the recycling of waste plastic bags, is not yet popular.

"Plastic bottles are wanted, but plastic bags are not wanted. You give them one by one, but I can't even weigh them." Mr. Liu, who has been engaged in waste recycling for many years, has been recycling waste in the northern community of Beijing. The types of waste he recycles range from furniture and electrical appliances to newspapers and water bottles, but he has never collected plastic bags.

Mr. Liu introduced that at present, there are almost scavengers in Beijing communities who pick up waste and sell it. Even if residents do not actively "sell waste", there will be scavengers who collect it by classification, and they can even "take it away after throwing it for a few minutes", but it is rare to hear that scavengers will collect plastic bags: "I heard that some people collect the film used to cover the ground in rural areas, which is so convenient to collect."

In fact, the plastic bags sold for a fee in supermarkets are all recyclable. Consumers only need to observe the printed content on the plastic bag to find the recyclable symbol composed of three curved arrows, and its number is mostly 02, that is, the plastic bag material is high-density polyethylene (PE-HD). According to online data, after recycling, waste plastic bags can be processed into plastic particles for reprocessing, or made into fuel for heating or power generation.

The "Notice of the General Office of the State Council on Restricting the Production, Sale and Use of Plastic Shopping Bags" also specifically mentioned the recycling of waste plastics, which clearly stated that "the competent departments for waste material recycling should strengthen the management of waste plastic recycling, guide and support material recycling companies to establish and improve recycling outlets, make full use of price levers and provide high-quality services to promote the recycling of waste plastics, vigorously promote large-scale sorting and grading, and give full play to the effectiveness of plastic resources."

It is difficult to find authoritative data on the effectiveness of the "Plastic Ban"

It is no secret that the "Plastic Ban" aims to reduce the consumption of plastic bags. While curbing "white pollution", it can also reduce the energy consumed in the production process of plastic bags and the pollution caused. However, after the implementation of the "Plastic Ban" for 7 years, not only has the public's consumption habits of plastic bags not changed fundamentally, but the relevant departments have also found it difficult to find a clear conclusion on the effectiveness of the "Plastic Ban".

In 2010, the official website of the Department of Resource Conservation and Environmental Protection of the National Development and Reform Commission published an article titled "Main Practices and Experiences of Implementing the Plastic Ban in Various Places". The article stated that "the plastic ban has received widespread attention from the society and positive response from the public, and has achieved significant results". According to statistics in the article, compared with the period before the implementation of the "plastic ban", the annual use of plastic shopping bags in Chinese supermarkets has been reduced by about 2/3, and plastic consumption has been reduced by about 270,000 tons: "According to estimates, commodity retail places can reduce plastic consumption by about 400,000 tons per year, save about 2.4 million tons of oil, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 7.6 million tons."

By 2013, a publicity campaign for the fifth anniversary of the implementation of the "Plastic Ban" was held in Beijing. The promotional copy of the campaign showed that "the Plastic Ban has achieved significant results in the past five years. The use of plastic shopping bags in supermarkets and shopping malls has generally decreased by more than 2/3. The use of plastic shopping bags in major retail outlets in China has decreased by 67 billion, and the cumulative reduction in plastic consumption is 1 million tons, which is equivalent to saving about 6 million tons of oil."

The two sets of official data three years apart both claimed that the use of plastic shopping bags has decreased by 2/3, and their consistency is questionable. The data also did not specify whether the "reduction of 2/3" was based on the figures before the implementation of the "Plastic Ban" or the year-on-year figures. At the same time, the annual average value of energy consumption in the data also differed greatly.

After the "fifth anniversary publicity campaign", the official website of the above-mentioned agency could not retrieve any articles about the effectiveness of the Plastic Ban in the past two years.

Experts question

The number of bags has decreased, but the weight of the bags has increased

Is the total amount of garbage reduced or increased?

"It has been seven years since the plastic ban was implemented. The official departments should reconsider how well it is implemented and whether the clauses in it are adapted to the actual situation." Tang Saizhen, former senior engineer and plastic expert of China Light Industry Information Center, suggested that the "plastic ban" should be re-evaluated and revised from multiple angles such as the production, sales and recycling of plastic bags to make it play a better role.

"The purpose of the plastic ban is to reduce energy consumption and pollution. The original intention of this policy is in line with our current general direction of green economy and circular economy." Tang Saizhen said that the effectiveness of the "plastic ban", such as the data on the production and recycling of plastic bags, should be counted and evaluated by professional third-party organizations. Take ultra-thin plastic bags as an example. The main reason for the ban is that they are easy to break and most of them are thrown away at random, becoming the main source of "white pollution". With the increase of people's environmental awareness, the habit of throwing away garbage has been greatly reduced. Ultra-thin plastic bags can also meet the needs of consumers to package fresh products, so it is possible to consider "legalizing" them again: "If a consumer buys a piece of tofu, the amount of garbage generated will be different if you use a thick plastic bag and a thin plastic bag. After the plastic bag is charged, the number of bags used is reduced, but the weight of the bags has increased. Has the total amount of garbage generated decreased? This requires research to draw a conclusion, and it cannot be banned." At the same time, in the context of finding a suitable substitute for plastic bags, reducing pollution still needs to start with recycling methods: "Plastic bags can be recycled. The reason why they are thrown away casually is that there is no profit in recycling them. If each one is like a bottle, even if you can get 1 cent for recycling one, someone will take the initiative to collect them." Writer Wu Nan Illustration Song Xi

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