The Tortoise and The Plastic Bag
(original photo by My father-in-law loves turtles. He has four of them in a bucket outside next to several birds.
He loves the turtles, saying like ‘they are the best thing since sliced bread’. Sometimes he spends dozens of minutes transfixed by their mutant ninja cool factor and awesome dexeterity.
But even the best of turtles can get caught in the grip of a fatal plastic bag.
Thankfully China’s new bagging policy (Ben’s post inspired me to write this) that went into effect nationwide on June 1st will help avoid tragedies like the one above.
No More Plastic Tragedies
Supermarkets all across China are now required to charge for plastic bags - the bigger the bag, the higher the charge - anywhere from 0.1 to 0.3 mao for the plastic variety. It’s a pretty significant step forward for China to put forth a policy that is being so widely followed. At least that’s the way it seems from here.
The past month or so I’ve been living in my wife’s hometown, a city of 500,000, small by Chinese standards. Surprisingly, even in small town China this new bag policy has been strictly followed. And I haven’t even seen anyone actually pay for a bag.
Is it the shame and social pressure? Is it the desire to help out the environment? Or is it just that people in small town China are cheap?
What do you think?
I’m just thankful my father-in-law’s turtles won’t meet a similar fate to the one above.
previous to the bag policy, I found it difficult to not get a bag. Many times I would bring a shopping bag and the checkout clerk would put the items in plastic and then into my shopping bag. There was no concept about reducing the consumption of bags. I don’t think it is a desire to help the environment though. There is still so much unnecessary packaging, bread stores stand out.
A desire to help the environment from above?
I always liked the bags because it’s what I used for trash, but now you need to buy your own bags…
I think it’s more a ‘pharisaism’(Doesn’t mean the Jewish community. I cannot find a proper word to describe it) thing, by which I mean emphasis more on the form rather than the content.
What I have heard–and seen actually, at Trust Mart–is that it is all part of the LOHAS movement. (Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability)
Sadly, I have seen people pay for plastic bags when they only have one or two items. Kind of pitiful…but thankfully I haven’t seen it too often.
However, at least at the small market by my house, it doesn’t seem to apply to things like vegetables and fruit. Those smaller vendors still seem plastic bag happy.
As for the turtle things, my roommate breifly had one. It lived in a large plastic bowl in our living room. I wish that she had been as into her turtle as your father in0law. This poor turtle’s water was rarely changed, and all it did for the few months that is was present was try to escape its bowl. Now it has disappeared. I don’t know if it had an incident with a plastic bag, if one of her psychotic cats killed it finally or if it simply died of neglect.