This study focuses on China, which is a growing concern relating to environmental pollution because of their growing population and the fact that the country hosts so many manufacturing plants. There is always mention of air pollution in China, but as we can see in this article plastic pollution is also an area of concern when discussing pollution in China. The legislation passed to reduce the use of plastic bags is definitely making some progress in China from the statistics shown in the article, and it seems that more and more people are learning about the negative effects of using plastic bags and supporting the legislation passed to reduce them. One key point that the article mentions is that people tend to consume a lot more of free items than items that need to be purchased, but it still seems that there are a lot of Chinese consumers willing to pay for plastic bags because of its convenience and relatively low cost in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps the prices for these bags should be further increased, so if somebody is consistently purchasing many plastic bags a week, he or she can feel the economic consequences and maybe consider using environmental friendly bags and refrain from using plastic bags.
The examples of illegally providing plastic bags in farmer’s markets just show that there needs to be stricter enforcement regarding the plastic bag laws. If there is even one case of harsh enforcement in these farmer’s markets, it will scare the others into ceasing their illegal activity regarding selling the bags. The fines will simply outweigh what the farmers can earn, and they will soon realize that they must cooperate with the law for their own sake even if they don’t care about the environment. Actions always speak louder than words, and it is clear in this article that the consumers say they support the plastic bag legislation, but on the other hand are just purchasing the bags for cents. We want to believe that people will stop doing damage to the environment, but we simply can’t trust them and if we want the environment to become a better place, there will need to be strict actions taken by the government and other organizations to make people save the environment.
