From tomorrow on, we will witness a major change in the shopping experience across China.

The production, sale and use of plastic shopping bags 0.025 millimeters thick or thinner will be banned, and retailers will be prohibited from providing customers with free plastic bags, under a State Council decree released in January.

Many are doubtful about the fate of such a ban - because people are so accustomed to receiving free plastic bags to pack their purchases at check-out counters. Complaints about inconvenience and additional cost have caused some to presume the ban will be aborted or at least not enforced.

But there is no excuse for not enforcing it.

The convenience of free plastic shopping bags was at the expense of the environment.

Nobody can tell precisely how many disposable plastic bags are given, used, and discarded every day.

We all know, from personal experiences, that we are guaranteed free supply of such bags to meet packing needs.

And we seldom reuse the bags. That is not just waste. It's also environmental pollution.

We are constantly annoyed by the various sizes and colors of abandoned plastic bags flying in our face, a common eyesore in both cities and the countryside.

The rest usually end up in landfills. They do not begin to rot until 100 or more years later, and their complete decomposition takes 200 years.

The idea to impose compulsory charges on the too-long free plastic bags is not a one-stroke cure.

Some places, including the city of Lhasa, have completely driven plastic bags from shopping venues.

Reports of people swarming to buy disposable plastic bags for use after June 1 show it will not be easy to wean consumers off what they long took for granted.

But we believe additional costs and strict enforcement will finally help them adapt. The process will be easier if more affordable and practical alternatives are offered to replace the previous convenience.

We believe that, as long as there is an unyielding political will on the executors' part, the ban will succeed.

The gradual disappearance of the once ubiquitous disposable plastic meal boxes along the country's main railways gives us confidence that the same can apply for shopping bags.

Compulsory stainless or decomposable meal boxes on passenger trains, along with redoubled recycling efforts in past years, have produced substantial change.

(China Daily May 31, 2008)