duibuqi, mei you daizi

not sure if you will find this as fascinating as i do. but on june 1st china, and i mean all of china, began charging for plastic bags (as well as outlawing the use of thin plastic bags). that's not really the fascinating part. the fascinating part is that China was using 3 billion plastic bags a day. yeah. 3 billion. they were using more in one month than the U.S. was using in a year, and we all know how much the U.S. likes to waste, i mean use, stuff. so it has been entertaining to see people walking around with groceries in hand and denying plastic bags left and right. it's still taking a little while to catch on in the streets, but you can definitely tell there is a difference. actually, i think it's amazing. and that more cities/nations should consider it. i mean if you really think about it, we waste so many plastic bags. and its not too difficult to get paper or just carry the one thing you bought at the store. either way, its been amusing and i was quick to learn the word for bag so i wouldn't have to pay any thing extra. but shops aren't really even carrying bags anymore, which isn't really a problem anyway (duibuqi, mei you daizi=sorry, we don't have any bags-or its something like that). so i am not sure what bag consumption is down to now, but i know the world is a little less littered with plastic bags.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/china_plastic_bag_ban.php