One year later, plastic bag use is down--but by no means gone in China

    限塑令在中国颁布一年后，塑料袋的使用减少了--但远非一去不复返。

    Does Banning Plastic Bags Work?

    Thin plastic bags are the ultimate throwaway item. Used once to tote groceries, the thin white bags often go on to second lives as permanent pollution and an eyesore. So a host of countries, cities and other governments have banned them or forced consumers to pay for them. The largest such country, by far, was China.

    The regulations went into effect last June before the Olympics and the track record is mixed. Bai si wu ran or "white pollution" seems to have visibly declined but that may have more to do with tidying up garbage than any ban.

    Even government officials admit the thinnest plastic bags, which were banned outright, are still in use, particularly in remote areas. Small workshops that churn out the contraband bags are easy to set up and hard to police. Small vendors, for their part, seem to think that the rule is no longer enforced and hand them out even in Beijing.

    Yet, a survey by the International Food Packaging Association found that the number of plastic bags making their way into garbage had declined by 10 percent over the last year and the Chinese government claimed that supermarkets alone reduced such bag use by 66 percent-some 40 billion fewer plastic bags to get caught in trees, riverbanks or elsewhere. The ultimate hope of the Chinese authorities is for the bags that are used to be recycled.

    Plastic bags may not disappear anytime soon but they're getting harder to spot.

    限塑令有效果吗？

    薄塑料袋最终是被丢弃的东西。这种薄薄的白色袋子仅仅在购买日用杂货的时候使用一次，而后就成为永久性的污染和碍眼物了。因此很多国家、城市以及政府部门禁止使用塑料袋，或者强迫消费者在使用的时候付钱，中国就是其中最大的限塑令国家。

    限塑令在去年奥运会之前的6月份开始生效，其效果是喜忧参半。"白色污染"似乎明显减少了，但是这可能更多的归于对垃圾箱的清理而非限塑令。

    连政府官员也承认，被禁的最薄的塑料袋仍然在使用之中，尤其是在偏远地区。生产这种违禁塑料袋的小作坊很容易建立起来，对其监控也很难。小商贩似乎认为限塑令不再有效了，他们甚至在北京兜售。

    不过，国际食品包装协会（International Food Packaging Association）的一项调查发现，在过去的一年里，进入垃圾桶的塑料袋的数量下降了10%,中国政府称仅超市中塑料袋的使用就减少了66%--减少的塑料袋约有400亿个，而人们经常会在树上、河边或者其它地方发现这些被弃塑料袋。中国当局的最终目标是使用可循环利用的塑料袋。

    塑料袋可能不会在短期内很快消失，但是对它们的使用越来越少了。

    Vocabulary:

    Ban:禁止；禁令

    Ultimate:最终的

    Tote:携带，搬运

    Groceries:食品杂货

    Permanent:最终的

    Eyesore:令人厌恶的东西

    Regulation:规定

    Decline:下降

    Garbage:垃圾

    Outright:彻底地

    Remote:偏远的

    Churn out: （粗制滥造地）大量生产

    Contraband:违禁品

    Police:（动词）监控

    Vendor:商贩

    Survey:调查

    Billion:十亿

    Recycle:循环