‘Green’ is the in thing there, but it’s not going as well as, well, you might think.
The government recently banned the use of plastic shopping bags less than 0.025mm thick, about what our plastic grocery bags run. Shops are no longer allowed to simply give them to customers at checkout. Of course, thicker bags are allowed…and (you’ll live this) shopkeepers still have the option of selling the banned bags to customers at checkout for pennies.
The so-called “bag belt” in Guangdong, where most plastic shopping bags are produced, faces massive layoffs.
A two-year-old ban on the use of gasoline in mopeds ran into a bit of a speed bump. Net to bicycles, mopeds are the most commonly used form of in-town transport in China, and the gas ban was designed to reduced air pollution (as if millions of mopeds were the whole air pollution problem there).
Owners had to convert to LPG, requiring a small expense for a conversion kit. But recent shortages of LPG at filling stations have caused a good many to break the law and unconvert – switching back to gasoline rather than walking.
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– Jim Smith
