China: Crackdown on Plastic Bags

The State Council, China’s cabinet, banned the production of thin plastic bags and will forbid China’s supermarkets to offer them free beginning June 1, saying they cause pollution and waste resources. The council said shoppers should return to using cloth bags. The Chinese use up to three billion plastic bags a day and the country has to refine 37 million barrels of crude oil every year to make plastics used for packaging, according to a report on the Web site of China Trade News.