China has announced a ban on single-use plastics that starts phasing in this year and will broadly forbid the use of consumer single-use plastics by 2025. China issued its first plastic ban years ago. At the time, the law banned the use of ultra-thin plastic bags and required department stores to charge for the use of plastic bags.
“There was a certain level of success, but on the other hand, socio-economic development in China and the increasingly affluent society started consuming far more plastic,” said Ma Jun, the director and founder of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a non-governmental organization in Beijing. “Especially in recent years, e-commerce and online food delivery started generating a new round of plastic packaging.”
The new plastic ban policy is a far more comprehensive response to the ongoing plastic crisis, Jun said. In China, and across the world, so-called “white pollution” caused by plastic bags, packaging, styrofoam and other products has been contaminating soil and waterways. Much of this waste gets dumped along riverbanks and ends up washed away into the water. A large percentage of this waste makes its way to coastal seas and the ocean, Jun said.
“We all know that this pollution can lead to an impact on the health of the ecosystem and on the animals and biodiversity and also, eventually, on public health, as well,” Jun said. “Now, I think we understand that there’s a cost to be paid. There’s a real big consequence.”