War on pollution: plastic bags banned, fines for polluting companies
The State Environmental Protection Administration denounces three multinational companies for pollution, and announces stiff fines. Meanwhile, debate grows over an imminent ban on stores from providing free plastic bags for customers. China consumes three billion plastic bags per day.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Beijing has begun 2008 with new measures against pollution. While talk continues about the ban on supermarkets and shops from providing free plastic bags for their customers, heavy fines against polluting companies have been announced.
On January 9, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) denounced three foreign multinational companies for pollution. They are CG-Omnova Decorative Products of Shanghai (denounced for excessive emission of sulphur dioxide and dust), Shanghai Cosco Kawasaki Heavy Industries Steel Structure (for noise pollution), and Jinmailang Corporation of Chengdu, for inadequate sewage treatment. Heavy fines have been announced.
The three companies are among approximately 130 multinationals overseen by the SEPA since last November, after they violated environmental regulations in previous years. Until recently, similar violations that were very harmful to the environment were tolerated or punished lightly, in order to favour productivity. But now Beijing is concerned about the serious environmental damage these cause.
Ma Jun, head of the non-governmental Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, comments that it is time for industries, and especially the large multinational companies, to be more attentive and responsible toward society.
Meanwhile, yesterday, in an internet survey by People's Daily, the official newspaper of the communist party, more than half of the 30,000 people surveyed said they were against the government's decision to require customers to pay for their plastic shopping bags, beginning on June 1. The objections are mostly of a practical nature, against the inconvenience of extra costs.
Qin Haifeng, who runs a fried dumpling shop in one of the hutongs [narrow downtown streets] of Beijing, tells the South China Morning Post that "My dumplings cost 50 fen [yuan cents] each. If I charge a customer 30 fen for the bag, he will never return".
But analysts and environmentalists are in favour of the measure, which they maintain will reduce the use of polluting plastic bags. According to the news agency Reuters, the Chinese use more than three billion plastic bags each day. After June 1, the current bags, which are very thin, will be replaced with sturdier bags, in order to promote repeated use.
The large companies are also in favour. Huang Jianling, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart China, says "we have been promoting the idea for years, but it is difficult to have all customers understanding and accepting alternatives to plastic bags".
Everyone believes, in any case, that this is just a first step, aimed in part at seeing the reactions of a population that has always been little inclined toward changing its habits.
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