Plastic Bags and Gas Shortage – My Observation

Today is not only an International Children’s Day, it is also the first day China ban retailers to provide free plastic bags to shoppers.

I didn’t shop today, but yesterday, when I bought a toy for Yifan, I already saw the price list for plastic bags in Grant Gateway.

The big yellow plastic bag cost 1.00 RMB, and the smallest bag cost 0.1 RMB. We will need to wait and see how this policy is enforced. It is said retailers will be fined for 10,000 RMB for providing free bags to consumers. Although as any policy, I don’t see a democratic process to pass this regulation, it is a good one that I support.

Gas Shortage

In the morning, I start to observe people get to work late just because they pass a gas station or two on the way. Now besides 0# gas, #90 and #93 gas is also in shortage. I first reported 0# shortage in Oct, 2007, and found out diesel shortage started to cause traffic jam, I didn’t expect 90# and 93# gas are also in shortage. In media, I saw drivers line up for 2 km to fill in the gas, and even taxi drivers were forced to use #97, instead of cheaper #90.

I went to gas station just now. It is still OK, just as normal days. Maybe I am lucky. I will report later to see how the situation goes.

6 thoughts on “Plastic Bags and Gas Shortage – My Observation

  1. I shopped today at a rural convenient store in SongJiang District. No free bags anymore. Each of them costs 0.1 yuan now. And I ended up holding 4 bottles of icy soda when walking out of the store.

  2. Maybe it’s time to sell the car when the Metro comes to your house. Seems like the car is more trouble than it’s worth

  3. Regular unleaded gas here is around $4/gal these days. How about Shanghai?

  4. The free plastic bag ban is a great idea. I wish they would have a similar ban here in the United States.

  5. These two measures are together, the plastic usually comes from the gas, so if you are not having one you should have problems with the other and the ban could also help environment, some supermarkets use paper bags which are biodegradable but the best is when they are reinforcing that you use a cloth bag the problem is to carry it when you go to the market hehe!

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