The New Beachhutman Blog

Back in the summer China banned plastic bags. That's the sort of "pro environment" action here, like shutting down power stations,  that the BBC and certain other media channels just hate to publish, because it paints the Chinese governemt in a good (-ish) light. Sort of. A bit.

Anyway, there was an outright ban on very thin bags. These were the worst environmental disasters, clogging waterways, choking wildlife, blowing about the country. And they were non-bio sdregradable, so it was a growing problem. Banned outright, no appeal, no exceptions. 

Also banned were free plastic carry bags from any shop. Some market traders and tiny stores were allowed exemptions, but not for those thinnest bags. Stores and shops now have to charge about a penny a bag if they give you a carry bag. As a result the Chinese have taken to travelling about with a couple of bags in their briefcase or even folded into a coat pocket, for those take-home-for-dinner moments of impulse.

The ban is working, as of course is possible in a country like this, because the people are highly collectivist. They believe in the group's responsibilities, and in the success of the group working together, so it would be quite wrong to take an individual position, and refuse to comply.

Plus you could get locked up in jail.

It has had a couple of side effects. We now all carry a few coins in our pockets to buy a bag when we forget and find ourselves in a shopping checkout emergency. The biggest Chinese coin is currently 1 Kuia (or China Yuan) and worth about 12 U*S cents. The smallest is 1 Jiao, worth less than a tenth of that. So coins didn't really have any buying power over the last decade, as the question, "What can you get with 1 Jiao?" had no answer.

Now it has an answer. You can buy a carry bag. Or half a carry bag in a really good upmarket supermarket. Here's a 1 Jiao coin and the note it replaces, which is still in circulation.

Another outcome is the sprouting of the Chinese version of "Green Shopping Bag", oddly often actually green. (I am not sure I feel happy about some politicians "capturing" that colour.)

Here are some of these, which typically sell at one or two Yuan, about 30 US cents. The blue one is from my local Chinese Supermarket, Jing Ke Long, which even after eighteen months makes the team laugh when I attempt to pronounce it - and the green one on the left from Jenny Lou's, the "Expat shop" where I occasionally go to to buy, amongst other stuff, good English cheese. I am tempted to sell the Walmart ones on Ebay -  a nice little profit for me, and a sort of status symbol for the buyers?

Oh, dream on!