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The death of the plastic bag

plasticbag0109.jpgIn a surprise move that if enforced will lead to an undoubtedly cleaner Shanghai and China in general. The powers that be have decided that as of June 1st those ultra thin plastic bags (.025mm) that accompany virtually every purchase in China will be banned. The regular thickness plastic bags will still be allowed, but grocery stores and other vendors will be forced to charge for those bags and prices will need to be clearly marked.

Every year China refines 37 million barrels of crude oil to make three billion plastic bags. To put that into perspective, it would take Iceland about five years to use that much oil, but the USA would use that much oil in less than two days.

Photo from timparkinson

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By Chris Billman in on January 9, 2008 2:32 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

  • GrisGrisAhAh

    Does this mean an end to those less-than-useless black bin liners that may as well come pre-shredded for all the use they are?

  • EL JEFE

    Sorry, my bad, the US uses about 3/4 more barrel pp/pd

  • EL JEFE

    It doesn't really put anything into perspective.



    Iceland has 300,000 people, the US 300 million, so per capita, Iceland actually uses about the same amount of oil as the US, because the US uses 20M barrels a day, and Iceland uses 20K. Actually, I think the US is more efficient per capita, but I don't expect a "reporter" to be bothered with understanding the maths.

  • shopgirl

    shangpudi: ok, seriously. I hope for your own sake that you're joking.



    are you american? wouldnt surprise me.

  • shangpudi

    "it would take Iceland about five years to use that much oil"



    wait a second, since when do polar bears go grocery shopping? Besides, i thought iceland melted away already, haven't you read about the polar bears that drowned trying to escape?

  • shopgirl

    Indeed, that is great news All countries should ban those and use other bags that you can use over and over again!!



    I always do that AND save money

  • James Creegan

    great news- I hate those little bags.

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