www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
Business
Home / Business / Talking Business

Plastic bags are handy, but threaten our environment

By Gao Jin'an | China Daily | Updated: 2016-12-13 08:06

Plastic bags are handy, but threaten our environment

Customers put tomatoes into a plastic bag at a supermarket in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. [Photo/China Daily]

Once a month or so, my wife and I call a collector to take away the recyclable trash piling up on our kitchen balcony-newspapers, packaging cardboard, bottles and so forth. Often, he pays us one or two bucks.

But there are always items he doesn't want-plastic bags.

We have been trying to use as few plastic bags as possible, but still they pile up. I don't know how others dispose of them. We keep the clean, intact ones to use on future shopping trips. The dirty ones go to their final use, as trash bags. However, most bags are stained or small ones that we have to take out with other trash.

Plastic bags, since their invention about a century ago, have brought tremendous convenience and become an inseparable part of the fabric of our daily lives. It's not easy to name any aspect of our daily lives where plastic bags are absent.

But, this convenience comes with a price-environmental pollution or "white pollution", as it is better known here in China. Studies have shown that it will take some two centuries for plastic bags to degrade. The Guardian and Time listed plastic bag as one of the worst inventions, because of the grave environmental hazards.

Nonetheless, this should not negate the role of plastic bags.

The question is how we can "invent" effective and revolutionary ways and technologies to mitigate or eliminate the unwanted side effects, thus making plastic recycling both green and profitable.

The government banned the production, sales and use of ultrathin plastic bags in 2008 and a system in which customers must pay for plastic bags was also introduced in the year across the country. Still, Chinese consumers use as many as 3 billion plastic bags everyday, according to the China Plastics Processing Industry Association.

Most of these bags eventually end up in landfills, but others are randomly discarded, causing serious environmental problems. A few are incinerated for power generation or processed for reuse, causing air pollution.

To curb white pollution, it will probably work better if measures are taken on both ends of the chain-reducing the use of such bags and seeking new and advanced technologies for green disposal.

On the one hand, higher costs may force some consumers to give up excessive use of plastic bags and to bring their own shopping bags. If a habit of bringing their own bags is established among consumers, the amount of plastic usage would fall accordingly.

On the other hand, stores will have to prepare durable and environmentally friendly alternatives for customers.

In the war against white pollution, the government should encourage research and development of environmentally friendly methods and technology for plastic disposal and offer incentives for companies and organizations engaged in the sector. This will help drive forward the country's initiative to develop a circular economy, in which plastic recycling and harmless disposal have a role to play. Plus, the government needs to offer both financial and policy support to green disposal.

Another option is that all plastic bags could be made degradable to mitigate the environmental hazards. While writing this article, I did a search on a popular and widely used e-commerce platform in China. The result was pretty discouraging. A search for "plastic bag" led to more than a hundred pages of results. But when I narrowed it down to "degradable plastic bags", there were only two pages.

Only when degradable plastic bags are widely used and when plastic disposal becomes profitable, will we then be able to expect an environment with less white pollution. And, the collectors of recyclables will then be willing to pay the bags, which will be a valuable resource.

Most Viewed in 24 Hours
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
主站蜘蛛池模板: 欧美一区二区三区不卡片 | 欧美一二三区视频 | 美女啪啪网站又黄又免费 | 久草在线免费新视频 | 日本一道免费一区二区三区 | 韩国成人毛片aaa黄 韩国福利一区 | 日韩一区二区三区在线播放 | 大狠狠大臿蕉香蕉大视频 | 亚洲午夜片 | 国产一级视频播放 | 国产精品福利午夜h视频 | 久久精品国产亚洲综合色 | 99九九99九九九视频精品 | 日韩不卡一区二区 | 九九精品视频在线观看九九 | 碰碰碰精品视频在线观看 | 99在线视频播放 | 成人网18免费网站在线 | 国产 日韩 欧美 在线 | 亚洲高清免费在线观看 | 色偷偷亚洲女人天堂观看欧 | 亚洲天堂久久精品 | 欧美高清免费精品国产自 | 欧美一级特黄视频 | 精品视频在线播放 | 涩涩国产精品福利在线观看 | 91久久香蕉 | 久在线观看视频 | 免费看一毛一级毛片视频 | 成人国产在线24小时播放视频 | 二区国产 | 国产精品免费精品自在线观看 | 欧美国产在线看 | 欧美性色黄大片一级毛片视频 | 乱系列中文字幕在线视频 | 91在线永久 | 中文字幕咪咪网 | 亚洲最新网站 | 国产香蕉影视院 | 怡红院亚洲红怡院天堂麻豆 | 中国一级毛片特级毛片 |