In Depth: China’s Popular Plastic Bag Replacement Is Less Green Than It Seems

Li Jingjing enjoys repurposing various objects, converting glass bottles into lamps and cups, key chains into pill boxes, and crab shells into a fox collage [para. 1]. However, she finds it challenging to reuse her collection of over 200 nonwoven bags, accumulated through frequent online grocery shopping from platforms like Freshippo and Dingdong Maicai [para. 2][para. 3]. She shared her dilemma on social media, generating hundreds of comments and revealing a widespread issue of nonwoven bags being too numerous to manage yet too durable to discard [para. 4][para. 5].

Nonwoven bags, often mistaken for cloth but typically made from plastic fibers, became popular following regulations limiting single-use plastic bags [para. 6]. These regulations aimed to reduce plastic waste as single-use plastic bags can persist for up to 400 years without decomposing and were used excessively in China, with an average of 1,095 bags per person annually [para. 9][para. 11]. A 2007 notice from the State Council restricted the production and use of thin plastic bags, but their usage continued to rise, leading to further regulations in 2020 banning non-degradable single-use plastic bags in major cities [para. 12].

Despite the promotion of eco-friendly alternatives like cloth and paper bags, these options failed to gain popularity due to perceptions of high costs and poor quality [para. 13]. Consequently, nonwoven bags emerged as a replacement, despite not being classified as eco-friendly or banned [para. 14].

Businesses often promote nonwoven bags as "eco-friendly" despite their plastic composition. A survey by Plastic Free China revealed that only 10% of respondents knew these bags are made from plastic, with many mistaking them for natural materials like cotton and hemp [para. 16]. The green marketing is partially justified by their durability compared to single-use plastic bags [para. 17]. However, a U.K. Environment Agency report stated that nonwoven bags need to be reused at least 11 times to offset their production's greater environmental impact [para. 18]. If discarded after one use, a single nonwoven bag consumes 17.8 times more energy and emits 16.7 times more carbon than a disposable plastic bag [para. 19]. Furthermore, nonwoven bags are becoming thinner and more akin to disposable items as businesses attempt to reduce costs [para. 20]. A survey in Hainan indicated that most consumers do not reuse these bags due to their small size and poor quality, and they often leak when used as garbage bags [para. 21].

Environmental scientists argue for focusing on reducing the production of plastic waste and emphasize the importance of actual reuse over merely substituting one plastic product for another [para. 23]. Recycling and reuse should follow waste generation, with incineration for energy recovery as a secondary option and landfilling as a last resort [para. 24]. The burgeoning food delivery industry in China is also addressing plastic use, with initiatives like Meituan's Blue Mountain Project, launched in 2017 [para. 26]. This project has encouraged over 410 million customers to opt out of receiving cutlery, leading to a 63% execution rate of such orders in 2023 [para. 27], demonstrating steps towards reducing plastic waste in food delivery packaging.

Contact reporter Guo Xin at xinguo@caixin.com and editor Joshua Dummer at joshuadummer@caixin.com for more information [para. 28].