Effective, but more actions better

From Sunday on, all Chinese retailers, including supermarkets, department stores and grocery stores, no longer provide free plastic shopping bags.

China tries to reduce the use of plastic bags in a bid to reduce energy consumption and polluting emissions.

However, I have doubts on its real effects. From an economic angle, everyone will count costs and gains.

Now at the supermarkets, the customers pay about 0.1 to 0.4 yuan for a plastic bag, or put in another way, for the cost of the pollution it causes.

The gain of using a plastic bag is its convenience.

If one buys vegetables worthy of 1 yuan at a grocery bazar, he will be more likely to save 0.4 yuan for a plastic bag, because the gain of convenience exceeds the cost.

But at a supermarket the case is different. When customers buy a lot, the convenience will weigh over the little money of 0.1 or 0.4 yuan.

Hence the pricing tool can play a more important role at grocery bazaars.

However, grocery bazaars are hard to be supervised, and all vegetable vendors are afraid of losing customers if their competitors continue to provide plastic bags.

The good first step to limit the use of plastic bags should follow more effective actions, or else the small cost can hardly alter people's attitudes toward plastic bags.

Wang Pan

on blog.sohu.com

To be happy is not a fault

To be happy and optimistic is not a fault of our Sichuan fellow people.

These days I have noticed messages posted on some blogs which criticize earthquake victims for their puckish and humorous demeanors after they are rescued.

Some people even said if they had known this, they would not have donated money for the victims.

Self-righteous, these people might think they were qualified to point fingers at the Sichuan people because of their donation.

Well-known for its leisurely life, beautiful scenes and hot cuisines, Sichuan has been called Tianfu, or Paradise, for centuries. The Sichuan people are warm, resolute and humorous.

For us Sichuan people, we were not able to prevent the earthquake from happening but we can adapt ourselves to the reality.

Tears, sad faces, silent children all have broken our hearts.

As Sichuan people, we are proud of our courage to face up to the natural disaster.

Text messages are spreading among us, carrying fun and optimism after the huge catastrophe.

After being pulled out of the rubble by Russian rescuers, a victim said: "What a violent quake! Did it knock me to a foreign country?"

One of my classmates lived in Dujiangyan city, which was damaged very seriously. Only after several days was I able to contact him.

Asked about his current situation, my classmate finally said: "The damned quake has enabled me to own two apartments now." The tremor cracked his apartment into two parts .

One of my colleagues cut his hair very short after the earthquake. He told me: "Short hair meets weaker resistance, so I can run faster during aftershocks."

Even more funny were some Chengdu people who gathered at Tianfu Square. Instead of sighing over their fate or worrying about the future, they simply ate hot pot or played poker.

Maybe our Sichuan fellows' attitudes are unacceptable for many people. But if you were us, could you get through the hard times only immersed in sadness?

It's not our Sichuan people's fault that we are happy and optimistic.

Weimei

On blog.sina.com.cn

Readers' comments are welcome. Please send mail to Letters to the Editor, China Daily, 15 Huixin Dongjie, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029 China. Send faxes to (86-10) 6491-8377. Send e-mail to opinion@chinadaily.com.cn or letters@chinadaily.com.cn or to the individual columnists. China Daily reserves the right to edit all letters. Thank you.

(China Daily 06/05/2008 page9)