Under the requirements of the "plastic restriction order", non degradable disposable plastic bags have gradually withdrawn from the market. Reusable non-woven bags have become one of the main substitutes and are widely used in supermarkets, catering, takeout and other fields. Some local governments have also distributed non-woven bags printed with propaganda slogans to the masses. Member of Chongqing Municipal Committee of the Chinese people's Political Consultative Conference, deputy director of the Standing Committee of Shapingba District People's Congress Bian Weihui, chairman of Shapingba District Committee of China Democratic National Construction Corporation, introduced: "The main raw material of non-woven bags is polypropylene, and its essence is still plastic products. People generally mistakenly think that non-woven bags are traditional cloth bags, and they have a vague understanding of their pollution problems. In order to reduce the loss of the 'plastic restriction order', some businesses widely use non-woven bags with light and thin materials and easy to be damaged. To a certain extent, it violates the original intention of the 'plastic restriction order' and leads to new pollution, which needs to be paid great attention to."
According to the consumer side Research Report on the new regulations on plastic prohibition and restriction in the Yangtze River Delta released by Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission on March 9, 2021, 76.4% of respondents in the Yangtze River Delta said they had non-woven environmental protection bags at home, 42.6% said they would not use them because of "poor quality" and "ugly", and nearly 30% of respondents said they would directly use non-woven environmental protection bags as garbage bags.
Non woven bags are essentially plastic products. According to a study published by the British environment agency in 2011, non-woven bags need to be reused at least 11 times to make up for the pollution it brings. Bian Weihui said: "the research found that non-woven bags used in supermarkets and takeout meals are thin, with low requirements for load-bearing, carrying, waterproof and puncture proof performance, poor workmanship, quality and durability, easy to be damaged and opened, which is difficult to reuse. If non-woven bags are used only once, the energy consumption of a single non-woven bag is 17.8 times that of disposable plastic bags, and the carbon emission is 16.7 times that of disposable plastic bags."
In 1016 valid questionnaires collected from an online survey, 756 people "do not think that non-woven bags are plastic products and will not cause pollution". Bian Weihui said that due to the word "cloth", non-woven bags may be reminiscent that their raw materials are natural materials. In addition, due to the publicity and guidance of merchants, most ordinary people cannot recognize the pollution hazards caused by the abuse of non-woven bags.
With the concept of environmental protection becoming more and more popular, more people tend to use environmentally friendly and pollution-free daily necessities. To this end, Bian Weihui suggested: first, improve industry standards. The production standards of non-woven cloth bags shall be formulated from the aspects of moisture resistance, tenacity, load-bearing, thickness, etc. it is required that non-woven cloth bags that meet the standards can be circulated in the market, otherwise they will be punished as traditional plastic bags. Guide manufacturing enterprises to earnestly fulfill their social responsibilities, abide by industry standards, and strengthen the universal design of non-woven bags to meet the use needs of non-specific scenes.
Second, strengthen supervision. Relevant departments formulate more specific management and guidance measures for non-woven bags, bring non-woven bags that do not meet industry standards into the supervision scope of "plastic restriction order", give full play to the joint supervision of departments, strengthen the supervision and inspection of production enterprises, and severely crack down on unqualified production and sales. Standardize the advertising release of enterprises and businesses, require the platform to strengthen the audit of advertising, and prohibit misleading or false publicity.
Third, strengthen publicity and guidance. Strengthen the publicity and popularization of "disposable" non-woven bags, get rid of the false name of "cloth", return to the authenticity of plastic products, and guide the general public to correctly understand non-woven bags. Vigorously advocate the concept of environmental protection and energy conservation, encourage recycling, and correctly classify and put in discarded bag garbage. Giving play to the guiding and exemplary role of the government, local environmental protection departments issued a notice requiring units to strengthen quality and durability control when using non-woven bags and resist "disposable" non-woven bags. (Gao Junming)
