First Day of Plastic Bag Ban Nationwide

2008年06月05日 浙江在线新闻网站

Some customers without bags kept the items they bought loose By Shi Peng

 

All plastic bags have been no longer provided for free in nationwide supermarkets and free markets since June 1st, which was a big day to change one of their shopping habits for years for most people.

Feedbacks from both supermarkets and free markets are the same in Hangzhou: a great drop of the usage of plastic bags and a large increase of the sales of environmental friendly shopping bags.

Most shoppers accept and support the Plastic Bag Ban. Customers who need plastic bags at the supermarket would wait patiently at the check out point for the cashier to scan the bar code on plastic bags. Those who forget to bring their own carry bags have to purchase bags on designated sales point in the free market as the vendors have been no longer allowed to provide the plastic bag.

 

Over half of the customers

brought their own bags

Mr. Shen Shuangquan, manager of Yeqingdou Free Market, noticed that customers came with all kinds of shopping bags and shopping baskets on the morning of June 1st. He said, "I roughly estimated that 90% of the customers bring their own bags." As usual, most of the customers shopping in the early morning are elder people.

However, when younger customers, who are less sensitive to the price of plastic bags, came to the market, the overall proportion of people bringing their own bags dropped to over 60% by the end of day. While at the closing of 31st May, only around 30% of shoppers came with their own bags.

In Wanshouting Free Market, more people came with bags. "Only about 20%-30% of the shoppers need to buy plastic bags." remarked Mr. Yu Bing, office manager of Wanshouting Free Market.

Among the customers in Qingchun Store of Century Lianhua (a giant local supermarket chain), about half of the customers brought their own shopping bags. As commented by deputy store manager Ms. Zhang Juan, around 20% of the customers neither brought bags nor purchased bags, as they only checked out and kept the items they bought loose.

Most of the carry-on shopping bags are environmental friendly bags, some of which are homemade, some of which are purchased or redeemed from different channels. We spotted in the markets the shopping bags promoted by companies like the City Express, Xinhua Bookstore, etc. from time to time.

 

Usage of plastic bags

dropped dramatically

All shop owners noticed the vast fall of the number of plastic bags used on the first day of Plastic Bag Ban. The difference before and after the ban is quite distinct in Qingchun Store of Century Lianhua.

"3,500 plus plastic bags were sold at 0.3 yuan by 5:00pm on June 1st. Over 20,000 bags of the same size would be used in old days when they were given for free." said Ms. Zhang Juan.

In Wanshouting Free Market, around 100,000 plastic bags of all sizes would be used in old days. However, only 3,000-4,000 plastic bags were sold to customers and 20,000 wrapping bags were sold to vendors for fresh food, deli food and bakeries on June 1st.

Larger plastic bags for sale are most welcome with individual prices at 0.1 yuan, 0.2 yuan and 0.3 yuan for different sizes sold in free markets.

"Around half of the sales are the 0.3 yuan ones." said Mr. Yu Bin, "Larger bags are popular as they are big enough for everything and can be used again next time."

 

Sales of environmental

friendly bags increased greatly

As a sharp contrast, the sales of environmental friendly bags sold in all supermarkets increased rapidly.

"Many customers came today to redeem or rent the environmental friendly bag. The sales of a big shopping bag priced at 4.8 yuan increased by 200% compared with the day before." said Mr. Yang Juanmei, marketing manager of Huarun Wanjia Supermarket.

Environmental bags are priced at 2.5 yuan to 28 yuan in Qingchun Store of Century Lianhua. The sales of these bags on June 1st were over three times more than the day before.

In Yeqingdou Free Market, environmental bags are sold at 2 yuan each. Over 100 bags were sold on June 1st, similar to the total sales of last 7 days.

Market administrators had

inspection tours once every hour

Administrators in some free markets in Hangzhou started hourly inspection tour in the markets on June 1st.

"We toured around in the market once every hour with penalty slips in our hands. As what we have reiterated to the vendors in advance, 500 yuan penalty will be deducted from their guarantee deposit if they were found providing plastic bags." Mr. Shen Shuangquan said, "as the penalty measures are pretty clear, none of the vendors in Yeqingdou Free Market flout the law on the first day of Plastic Bag Ban."

来源： City express 作者： E.C.Hick 编辑： 侯玮