PROVINCE-WIDE THOROUGH BAN

    Southwest China's Yunnan Province will set a model for the country in truly protecting the environment in this respect, as it is planning stricter rules on the use of plastic bags.

    The provincial government has announced a definite ban on the production, sales and use of all plastic bags across the province, no matter of they are thicker or thinner than the 0.025 mm threshold, from January 1 next year.

    The ban means that on the first day of next year, no plastic bags will be available in all supermarkets, department stores, shopping outlets, hotels, restaurants and service sites in the province. Businesses will instead offer truly environment-friendly shopping bags, either free or charged.

    The confidence of Yunnan to go ahead with the thorough ban is largely associated with its practices in Shangri-La and Lijiang, two scenery areas in the province, which had fully banned the use of plastic bags for a few years, industry officials said.

    In 2001, Shangri-La, also known in some guidebooks by its old name Zhongdian, the most beautiful and unstained place in northwest Yunnan, forbid the use of plastic bags. It became the first place in the country to ban plastic bags.

    "During the past seven years, the most difficult thing for us is to find out proper substitutes," said Losang Chagxi, the environment protection bureau chief of Shangri-La County.

    When the thorough ban was first introduced, stall keepers tried to use newspapers to wrap meat and bean curds sold at farm produce fairs. When they returned home, buyers were annoyed to see their bean curds were left with the clear imprint of newspapers. The county also tried to persuade users to put vegetables in bamboo and straw stalk woven baskets, but people found it inconvenient to take along either.

    The county eventually found out the best way -- to promote reusable and degradable bags.

    The county had thousands of degradable bags produced in east China's Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, offered for free to residents.

    However, these substitutes were either too weak to support heavy goods or too costly. The county is exploring new ways to settle the substitute issue.

    "This shows the most essential problem is technical preparation rather than mental preparation of the residents," said Gong Weibin,a sociologist with the National Academy of Administration in Beijing.

    Chen Minyuan, a retired professor with Kunming Technology University, recently wrote a letter to the Kunming municipal government, proposing to borrow the practices of east China's Jiangsu Province and Shanghai to promote environment-friendly 100 percent biodegradation plastic bags in the transition period in the second half of the year to replace existing plastic bags.

    "In this way, residents will not suffer from inconvenience from the thorough ban. It will also turn Kunming into a production base of degradable plastic bags, creating promising business opportunities," said Chen.

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