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Too porous to help

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-17 07:31

Authorities have made it clear enough that the ban on disposable plastic bags does not cover restaurants.

This does not seem to be a big deal. After all, we do not always need to leave restaurants with a plastic bag, unless we have ordered substantially more than we can eat and are in the mood for consuming the leftovers at home. Not to mention that quite some environment-conscious eateries have already adopted recyclable alternatives, like paper, or degradable plastic containers.

But it reveals a gaping hole that threatens to render the high-sounding decree impotent.

The only venues where the ban on thin disposable plastic bags, as we have witnessed so far, has been implemented in letter and spirit are major super markets. Like it or not, we cannot avoid going there and buying what we need, even if that means we will have to pay an extra fee for what used to be offered for free.

No doubt the new rule has brought about positive changes. Either because we transfer to reusable shopping bags, plastic or not, or because we are reducing the use of disposable plastic bags out of cost considerations, super markets are handing out a lot fewer of them. Which will eventually cut waste and pollution.

The problem with the ban, however, is that it has not covered areas where it could and should have reached. Take restaurants for example. Many of us have difficulty understanding why restaurants are spared from such a ban. And to date nobody has bothered to come up with an explanation, even an unconvincing one.

On such an issue of broad concern, we wonder how the decision-makers have decided the coverage. If disposable plastic bags are a main source of white pollution, we are supposed to avoid them wherever possible. It is therefore perplexing to see a collective exception made for restaurants.

And there are the omni-present mini markets where many residents get their daily supply of fresh farm produces. These, as we know, turn out to be the largest sources of substandard disposable plastic bags.

If stall owners had been cautious in handing out free plastic bags in the first days after the ban was imposed, that is no longer the case now.

We do not want to doubt the authorities' resolve to deal with the environmental hazards facing us. But the embarrassing scenarios set us guessing as to what were on the decision-makers' minds when they put in place such a porous ban.

A broader ban on disposable plastic bags will only do us good.

(China Daily 07/17/2008 page8)