No more free plastic bags from June 1, 2008. That's the message to Chinese shoppers after a government ban on all production, sales or use of plastic bags less than 0.025 mm thick comes into force from this date. Nowadays, supermarkets give out 1 billion plastic bags every day while other shops collectively use double that amount. Consumers will have to pay for plastic bags exceeding this thickness, if they want this option.

According to results from similar bans in Japan, South Korea and France, the use in the number of ultrathin free bags in China may decline by two thirds.

China's move is hailed by green groups as a sign of its determination to protect the environment and raise the environmental awareness in the country.

However, some people believe that the government should not focus on banning free bags, because something must be used to replace them, with the most likely alternatives being paper and cloth bags. It seems that the two are environment-friendly materials, but the process of producing paper would consume a lot of wood, while most cloth bags would use chemical additives. They say that as long as the recycling of plastic bags is effectively carried out, the scourge of plastic is absolutely avoidable.

Others argue that while consumers are required to pay for the use of plastic bags, supermarkets that sell them and manufacturers that produce them should share this payment.

Additional suggestions put forward were that supermarkets should sell goods a bit cheaper to shoppers who choose not to use plastic bags and the government should give subsidies to these businesses, while offering favorable tax policies to manufacturers that produce environment-friendly carrier bags. These measures can better reflect the government's goodwill and its commitment to social responsibility, say observers. This will help encourage society to be more environment-friendly.

Who profits?

Li Xueren (www.xinhuanet.com): Plastic bags are popular mostly because they are very convenient to use, not because they are free of charge. Since retailers began to offer free plastic bags in south China's Guangdong Province in the 1980s, the whole country has been following this practice for more than two decades. Retailers see free plastic bags as a way to boost their competitiveness. They will never risk losing customers by stopping to offer cheap plastic bags.

On the part of consumers, they care more about the convenience brought by plastic bags than the price of plastic bags. Therefore, unless plastic bags are very expensive, consumers will not easily give them up. However, due to their low production cost, plastic bags can't be sold expensively. Compulsory measures to raise the price will trigger negative reaction.

Therefore, to impose a ban on free plastic bags is not the best way to solve the problem. The government needs to increase its investment in the research of convenient and environment-friendly carrier bags to replace current plastic bags. When people are provided with a better substitute, they will easily abandon plastic bags.

Mao Yingying (Beijing Business Today): Paid plastic bags, whatever the price is, will provide supermarkets and other shops with another way to make a profit. The cheaper they are sold, the more that can be sold. Meanwhile, no one can ensure that the money will be invested in environmental protection.

If the plastic bag ban means to discourage consumers from using the bags, it's important to make the whole production chain feel this intention. Here, special taxation is necessary to raise the cost of producing plastic, particularly non-degradable plastic, so that manufacturers will gradually become unwilling to produce it, retailers unwilling to sell it and consumers unwilling to buy it. At the same time, it's necessary to stipulate explicitly that taxes levied on plastic bags must be channeled into environmental protection. The government can also take this opportunity to expand the "environmental protection tax" to other polluting products, such as electronic waste and overly packaged products, with a view to launching a revolution in people's lifestyles.

Li Chang'an (www.hexun.com): Actually, the cost of plastic bags has long been transferred to consumers in invisible ways; that is, these bags have never been given free of charge. The worry is, since the state will ban free plastic bags, isn't it just an excuse to allow retailers to charge consumers for using these bags?

Environment-friendly plastic bags are more expensive than ordinary ones, so at a time when commodity prices keep rising, consumers may doubt that the government is deliberately raising the price. Besides, to produce degradable plastic is much more difficult in terms of technology, so it requires certification from relevant government departments. This could lead to corruption in these departments.

The popularity of plastic products around the globe is not groundless. Some experts indicate that if other materials are used to replace plastic, maybe the environment will suffer greater damage.

Given the current low recycling rate of plastic bags here in China, the first thing is to make more efforts to recycle plastic products; the second is to classify rubbish. In some developed countries, it is compulsory to classify rubbish so that plastic bags can be more efficiently recycled. This job is not done well in China.

Most important of all is to enhance people's awareness of environmental protection. This is the fundamental way to reduce the use of plastic bags. Without improving awareness, the plastic bag ban is likely to end up as a dead duck, just like the ban on "disposable chopsticks."

Say no to plastic bags

Zhao Yongxin (Work Times): Most opponents to the ban have ignored supplementary measures such as "offering free-of-charge environment-friendly carrier bags," and they focus on the fact that plastic bags will not be given free, believing it would increase financial pressure on consumers.

To make it a compulsory measure, the Chinese Government hopes to make polluters take accountability for using plastic bags and to reduce the use of plastic packaging in daily life.

Many people are indignant about industrial enterprises' large-scale discharge of pollutants, but actually everyone is responsible for environmental pollution. Although the pollution caused by an individual consumer in daily life is insignificant, the pollution contributed by the whole nation everyday is overwhelming. As any enterprise that discharges excessively will be fined, every citizen needs to pay the price for polluting the environment. Even in developed countries where people have a stronger awareness of environmental protection, the economic leverage is still playing a big role in environmental protection, let alone in China, where most people have little sense of environmental protection.

The significance of abolishing free plastic bags has already been proved. The "no plastic bag day" campaigns carried out by Plastic Bags Reduction Network, in south China's Xiamen University and Beijing Normal University as well as the Beijing Institute of Technology, where every plastic bag cost 0.1 yuan (1.4 cents), saw the use fall by around 85 percent.

Any new policy or regulation is likely to have its shortcomings. Inconvenience resulting from the ban can be gradually removed, but it's unwise to deny the ban just because of the inconvenience.

Chao Bai (Nanfang Daily): As far as plastic bags are concerned, some believe the production of plastic carrier bags should be banned so that supermarkets and restaurants will have no access to these bags; some believe since supermarkets will cease to provide harmful plastic bags, they must find a substitute for plastic packages. However, since both financially and technologically feasible alternatives for plastic carrier bags are still not available, at the current environmental protection level, the Chinese Government has no other choice but to ban free plastic bags to reduce their use. To a large extent, it is because of their worry about possible losses that some people are opposed to the ban. Actually, customers will encounter no real loss except that the elimination of free plastic bags will make their shopping experience a bit inconvenient.

To be frank, I don't think businesses will stop using plastic carrier bags without careful monitoring. Possibly, some sellers will try to attract customers by continuing to offer free plastic bags in disguised ways.

The key is to enhance the public's environmental awareness. To charge customers for the use of plastic bags means to awaken this awareness in daily life.

People will feel inconvenienced in the first days when free plastic bags are no longer provided, but this is a necessary step toward environmental improvement and no habits are unchangeable, particularly bad habits.

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Editor: Yao Bin