They can be found at an altitude of 6,000m on snowbound passes over the Himalayas and in the depths of the Congolese rainforest. They drift around the Southern Ocean and are piled high on the beaches of Nova Zemlaya to the north of Russia after being swept thousands of kilometers on the Gulf stream. But the end may now be in sight for the flimsiest of plastic bags after China pledged to ban them from June.
China's decision last week means it has joined a growing number of countries, states and cities taking action against the plastic litter that has accompanied rapid urban growth and increasing wealth. The bags have contributed to floods and health problems in many countries, blocking drains and providing perfect pools of warm water for mosquitoes and other insects to breed rapidly.
On Friday, shopkeepers in Beijing who hand out 2 billion bags a year were sanguine about the prospect of no longer wrapping everything in plastic so thin that it can only be used once, and of paying a small tax on all other plastic bags.
"No one has said anything to us about it yet, but I guess they will in June when the rule starts. I think it will be inconvenient but we'll just charge for them. I'm sure we'll get used to it," said Wang Jing, a sales assistant at a 24-hour supermarket.
CHEAP
A cashier at a large supermarket said that the ban might be a good thing: "We are probably giving out about 10,000 plastic bags a day. Customers often complain that they are poor quality; we have to use two bags most of the time. No one minds about this because the bags are so cheap. But I think customers might be willing to pay a bit more for better quality."
China took a lead from Hong Kong, which used to produce 8 billion bags a year, but after numerous "no plastic" days and voluntary bans it introduced a bill to impose a levy on plastic bags.
It emerged yesterday that Chinese officials had also consulted Bangladesh, the first large country to ban bags, in 2002 after the bags were identified as a leading cause of severe flooding.
"They came to us informally to ask our advice," said Atiq Rahman, director of the Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies, a development think tank.
The center had being among organizations pressing the Bangladeshi government to close down dozens of small scale plastic bag makers and impose a nationwide ban. But although the government closed the factories and stopped the bags being made, they have crept back in and the ban has proved almost impossible to police.
"The trouble is the plastic bag is an integral part of life. We have learned that to say absolutely no to them is not an option. Most supermarkets and small shops now use paper bags, but there is still a demand for the very flimsy ones. Now they are smuggled in from India. The beauty of China is that if they decide to do something, they will," Rahman said.
At least 40 countries, states and major cities have imposed, or are considering, bans. According to the UN environment program based in Nairobi, the plastic problem is now "on the agenda of almost every African country."
Rwanda and Eritrea have banned the bags outright; Tanzania has stopped all imports as well as the manufacture of bags and flimsy plastic drinking water containers; Kenya is in the process of prohibiting them; and South Africa, which once produced 7 billion bags a year, has prohibited bags thinner than 30 microns (one micron is one-thousandth of a millimeter). In many cases the bans have not proved effective. A ban on the use of thin plastic bags in Uganda has been widely ignored.
REJECTION
The growing global rejection of the bag is now reaching some of the remotest parts of the world. Papua New Guinea, Bhutan, Zanzibar and Botswana have all banned bags and introduced taxes. At least six Indian states, including Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh, have bans or are considering them.
Taiwan, which is running out of landfill space, has not only banned bags but has also stopped fast food restaurants and supermarkets issuing plastic knives, forks and cups. The local plastics industry, which has been producing 20 billion bags a year, says it expects to see 50,000 jobs lost.
Attitudes are changing fast in industrialized countries. Ireland took the lead in Europe in 2002 with a tax, Australia is planning to impose a federal ban this year and San Francisco and Oakland in California are forcing shops to use bags made of at least 40 percent high-grade recycled paper. This week New York passed a law forcing large stores to provide bins for recycling plastic bags. Meanwhile, the 33 London boroughs are planning to introduce a law banning the ultra-thin, single-use bags next year and imposing a tax on others.
The global plastics industry, estimated to make and distribute between 500 billion and 1 trillion bags a year, has fought back, arguing that plastics are getting more compact and take up less space in landfills. It says that paper bags require more energy to produce, generate more waste and burn less cleanly.
In a statement on its Web site yesterday, the Society of the Plastics Industry, which represents 2,000 plastic manufacturers in the US, said environmental activists and non-government organizations "have promoted a specific agenda and retailers have been too quick to give in to the outcries of alarmist special interest groups."
"Whoever wants to save the planet on this one is off the planet because it won't," Richard Evans, executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, told journalists on Friday.
"Supermarkets are already reducing their use of plastic bags by 50 percent. Plastic bags are a part of our lives -- if we replace them we are going to replace them with paper and where's the paper going to come from. Do we cut down more trees ... do we increase greenhouse gases?" he said.
Back in Beijing a kiosk owner was optimistic: "I don't think the police will come here and stop me issuing bags. It might be a good thing for me if the customers have to pay for them. I just buy them from a shop down the road."
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