Printable Research Paper
Pollution is a
problem that everyone pays attention to. This is understandable because
pollution deteriorates people’s living environment and a bad environment may
cause health issues for people. Among various kinds of pollution, plastic
pollution is one of the most serious pollution on earth. China, having
one of the largest populations in the world, also has serious plastic
pollution. Because one major source of plastic pollution is plastic bags and an
enormous amount of plastic bags is consumed daily, plastic pollution has
generally been called “White Pollution” in China.
As mentioned above, plastic bags are a
main source of plastic pollution. Since most plastic bags are white in China, it’s a
vivid to describe plastic bag pollution as white pollution. It will not be
complete, however, to only include plastic bags as a source of white pollution.
In general, any disposable products that are not easily decomposed are sources
of white pollution. Disposable products are products that are intended only for
single use. Nearly everyone uses at least one disposable product. Plastic
forks, spoons and knives provided in any food court, straws, paper cups, and
even toilet paper are all examples of disposable products. Every day, numerous
people will produce disposable waste and imagine how hard it is to deal with
the waste, considering that most of the disposable products are not easy to
decompose.
There are several reasons for why white pollution is so harmful. Being hard to decompose is one reason why white pollution is so harmful. Besides visual pollution, the other pollution that white pollution leads to is soil pollution. The use of plastic here is mainly in farm field. Farmers use plastic-film mulch to cover the crops, such as cotton. Mulch is a layer of combination of old leafs, small pieces of wood and manure, which stimulates the growth of crops by increasing the ground temperature and maintain soil moisture. Though plastic-film mulch has been a measure of great benefits, the advantages of it don’t outweigh the drawbacks.
An instance of the side effects of plastic-film mulch will be regarding the production of cotton in Xinjiang, a province in China. In Xinjiang, the application of plastic mulch used to successfully help farmers increase their output of cotton. In the past decades, the growth of cotton in Xinjiang increases greatly. With the income comes from cotton, farmers in Xinjiang improve their lives a lot. Actually, the technique of plastic-film much is so effective that the output of cotton in Xinjiang has taken half of the total amount cotton output in China in 2013. Nevertheless, used plastic film mulch will remain in the soil and as is known, plastics cannot easily decompose. After applying plastic film mulch technique for over thirty years, the amount of plastic film in the soil has reached the soil’s threshold. The soil has been losing moisture and turning into sediments. Seeds of crops cannot survive on sediments, which mean the output has been greatly decreased this year.
Knowing that plastic is hard to degrade, Chinese government tries to decrease people’s use of plastics. To properly dispose plastics is not easy and only finding solutions to that is a temporary solution. Aiming to reduce the sources of plastic bags, the government legislates nationwide plastic-bag ban in June, 2008. Before this date, plastic bags are free everywhere. Plastic bags also have been so essential in people’s daily lives for containing food, clothes, trash and everything else. The charge put on each plastic bag depends on the size of the bag. For large bag, the charge is 0.3 RMB. For small bag, the charge is 0.2 RMB, where 1 RMB is approximately 16 cents. At first, the ban has some effects and the use of plastic bags did decreases. When people go shopping, they begin bring their own shopping bags. The government's aim is to reduce people's reliance on plastic bags and further control the production of plastic bags from source. By charging plastic bags, the government wants to connect common people's vital interest with the use of plastic bags and the protection of environment. Through this, people's concepts of being environmental will be modified. Apparently, however, the acceptance of the masses isn't popularized. Most people still think it's inconvenient without plastic bags and they are reluctant to use substitutes of plastic bags. They care more about their own interest and ignore the real purpose of the government. After a period of time, people, especially those in local markets and those who work as petty dealers, find coping strategy to the plastic-bag ban. From then, the effects of the ban start to get less significant.
Petty dealers and people who work in local markets are generally referred to as people in small businesses. Local markets are similar to farmers’ markets. In local market, people can buy fresh meat and vegetable and fish and fruits. Moreover, the prices of the products in local markets are cheaper than those in supermarkets. Most local markets are in neighborhoods, so people are more inclined to go to local markets to buy their daily needs. Each day, the passenger flow volume in local markets is large, so the seller restock nearly everyday.
Similar to local markets, petty dealers are also prevalent in most cities and towns. Also called street vendors, petty dealers sell low cost products. Most dealers or vendors are unemployed people and they may come from rural areas. In China, farmers may or may not be rich, which depends on the output of their crops. However, mostly farmers don’t have access to high education. Even when they are rich enough to send their children to good schools, some farmers think that children only need to go to primary school. It’s more important to do farm work than studying. Not to mention that because their lack of education, some farmers still have bias for girls. Girls will get married one day and be a wife in other people’s home, yet boys not only are stronger and can do farm work, and also they’ll take wives in.
Most petty dealers are women. One good thing is that you can bargain with petty dealers about the prices. If you are good at speech, you can eventually get a fairly awesome price. As noted previously, however, most petty dealers may not have the chance to receive high education, so petty dealer mostly teach their children to vend on streets.
Both local markets and petty dealers are prevalent almost in every city and every town. In local markets, though, in most cases, sellers provide free plastic bags to customers, the costs of the plastic bags may actually have been included in the prices of the goods. Considering that plastic bags are mostly about 0.2 and 0.3 RMB, which is a relatively small amount compared to the price of the goods. When sellers do wholesale for plastic bags, the costs can be even cheaper than 0.2 and 0.3 RMB. Similarly, for petty dealers, they will also include the costs of plastic bags in the prices of goods. To be clearer, if the price of a good increase by 2 or 3 cents, most people will barely notice the change. Moreover, if sellers and dealers provide free plastic bags, they can attract customers to come back. Though plastic bags are merely 0.2 and 0.3 RMB, people still feel uncomfortable to pay for an extra amount.
Virtually, local markets and petty dealers have been two causes for why it’s hard to fight white pollution. It’s impossible to supervise numerous local markets and petty dealers all the time. Besides, petty dealers are flexible. In China, when they vend on streets, petty dealers may put their goods on self-made carts so that when supervisors come, they can quickly take all their goods and avoid being confiscated.
There are also other reasons why it has been not easy to fight white pollution. People feel uncomfortable with the life without plastic bags. Plastic bags are used also as containers for various things, such as food, clothes and trash. Even people who advocate plastic-bag ban feel awkward about this. White pollution is hard to root out for these reasons. There are as well many other reasons. Because of these reasons, it’s understandable that white pollution cannot be eradicated completely for all people. Based on this, my research aims to see that does plastic-bag ban changes young students individually on their shopping behaviors.
My research checks whether plastic-bag ban changes students’ shopping behaviors when they are in U.S and in China. I send out survey to 158 Chinese international students in various states in U.S. and 54 responded. My research asks four questions. They are:
1. In U.S, what’s the average number of plastic bags you use weekly?
2. In China, what’s the average number of plastic bags you use weekly?
3. In China, will you bring your own shopping bags?
4. In China, will you bring your own shopping bags?
From the results I received, it can be seen that most students use fewer than 5 plastic bags each week. However, when students are in China, about 10 percent of them tend to increase their use of plastic bags to 5 to 10. This may because they stay on campus and study in U.S. Yet when they go back to China, they hang out with friends and entertain themselves. Still the amount of plastic bags used is relatively small individually. Moreover, it shows that 75.44% students never bring their own shopping bags in U.S. Yet in China, only 28.81% students never bring their own shopping bags. Though in China, 22.03% students always bring their own shopping bags, 49.15% students choose that sometimes they will bring their own shopping bags. In Q3 and Q4, the percent of students who will always bring their own shopping bags is both the smallest, which are 5.26 and 22.03 separately. However, when in China, the percent of students who will sometimes bring their shopping bags is 49.15, and is really close to half of the entire group of students.
Though students who will always bring their own shopping bags are relatively fewer, from my results, it can be told that there’s a sign that students are restrained by plastic-bag ban. In China, students have the awareness not to buy plastic bags in supermarkets, because they sometimes bring their own shopping bags. It’s also possible that in certain condition, students do not foresee their needs to go to supermarkets, and thus don’t bring shopping bags with them. The difference in the survey results shows that students are aware of plastic-bag ban. If they didn’t know the ban, it’s reasonable to believe that they might answer differently. So the plastic-bag ban does have an effect on Chinese international students.
Another reason why I value the results from Chinese international students is that when students grow older and be parents, they can teach their children about the harm of white pollution and cultivate children’s consciousness about using plastic bags less often. Based on above, one of my suggestions is to advertise the drawbacks of white pollution more widely.
The other suggestion is to charge plastic bags more. Instead of 0.2 and 0.3 RMB, charge each bag for 1 to 1.5 RMB. In China, a bottle of water is about 1 RMB. In this way, people will definitely be more aware of the prices of plastic bags and further alert them to always bring their own shopping bags. If people forget to bring their own shopping bags, they will have to spend the price of a bottle of water to buy one plastic bag, which seems quite not worthy.
Overall, my website introduces the harmfulness of white pollution itself and the other kinds of pollution caused by it. For instance, soil pollution. To deal with white pollution, one method Chinese government employs is to legislate plastic-bag ban, yet there are so many resist forces, such as small businesses. It has been hard to fight white pollution. Based on my research results, my solutions to white pollution is that to educate young people and raise the prices of plastic bags.
There are several reasons for why white pollution is so harmful. Being hard to decompose is one reason why white pollution is so harmful. Besides visual pollution, the other pollution that white pollution leads to is soil pollution. The use of plastic here is mainly in farm field. Farmers use plastic-film mulch to cover the crops, such as cotton. Mulch is a layer of combination of old leafs, small pieces of wood and manure, which stimulates the growth of crops by increasing the ground temperature and maintain soil moisture. Though plastic-film mulch has been a measure of great benefits, the advantages of it don’t outweigh the drawbacks.
An instance of the side effects of plastic-film mulch will be regarding the production of cotton in Xinjiang, a province in China. In Xinjiang, the application of plastic mulch used to successfully help farmers increase their output of cotton. In the past decades, the growth of cotton in Xinjiang increases greatly. With the income comes from cotton, farmers in Xinjiang improve their lives a lot. Actually, the technique of plastic-film much is so effective that the output of cotton in Xinjiang has taken half of the total amount cotton output in China in 2013. Nevertheless, used plastic film mulch will remain in the soil and as is known, plastics cannot easily decompose. After applying plastic film mulch technique for over thirty years, the amount of plastic film in the soil has reached the soil’s threshold. The soil has been losing moisture and turning into sediments. Seeds of crops cannot survive on sediments, which mean the output has been greatly decreased this year.
Knowing that plastic is hard to degrade, Chinese government tries to decrease people’s use of plastics. To properly dispose plastics is not easy and only finding solutions to that is a temporary solution. Aiming to reduce the sources of plastic bags, the government legislates nationwide plastic-bag ban in June, 2008. Before this date, plastic bags are free everywhere. Plastic bags also have been so essential in people’s daily lives for containing food, clothes, trash and everything else. The charge put on each plastic bag depends on the size of the bag. For large bag, the charge is 0.3 RMB. For small bag, the charge is 0.2 RMB, where 1 RMB is approximately 16 cents. At first, the ban has some effects and the use of plastic bags did decreases. When people go shopping, they begin bring their own shopping bags. The government's aim is to reduce people's reliance on plastic bags and further control the production of plastic bags from source. By charging plastic bags, the government wants to connect common people's vital interest with the use of plastic bags and the protection of environment. Through this, people's concepts of being environmental will be modified. Apparently, however, the acceptance of the masses isn't popularized. Most people still think it's inconvenient without plastic bags and they are reluctant to use substitutes of plastic bags. They care more about their own interest and ignore the real purpose of the government. After a period of time, people, especially those in local markets and those who work as petty dealers, find coping strategy to the plastic-bag ban. From then, the effects of the ban start to get less significant.
Petty dealers and people who work in local markets are generally referred to as people in small businesses. Local markets are similar to farmers’ markets. In local market, people can buy fresh meat and vegetable and fish and fruits. Moreover, the prices of the products in local markets are cheaper than those in supermarkets. Most local markets are in neighborhoods, so people are more inclined to go to local markets to buy their daily needs. Each day, the passenger flow volume in local markets is large, so the seller restock nearly everyday.
Similar to local markets, petty dealers are also prevalent in most cities and towns. Also called street vendors, petty dealers sell low cost products. Most dealers or vendors are unemployed people and they may come from rural areas. In China, farmers may or may not be rich, which depends on the output of their crops. However, mostly farmers don’t have access to high education. Even when they are rich enough to send their children to good schools, some farmers think that children only need to go to primary school. It’s more important to do farm work than studying. Not to mention that because their lack of education, some farmers still have bias for girls. Girls will get married one day and be a wife in other people’s home, yet boys not only are stronger and can do farm work, and also they’ll take wives in.
Most petty dealers are women. One good thing is that you can bargain with petty dealers about the prices. If you are good at speech, you can eventually get a fairly awesome price. As noted previously, however, most petty dealers may not have the chance to receive high education, so petty dealer mostly teach their children to vend on streets.
Both local markets and petty dealers are prevalent almost in every city and every town. In local markets, though, in most cases, sellers provide free plastic bags to customers, the costs of the plastic bags may actually have been included in the prices of the goods. Considering that plastic bags are mostly about 0.2 and 0.3 RMB, which is a relatively small amount compared to the price of the goods. When sellers do wholesale for plastic bags, the costs can be even cheaper than 0.2 and 0.3 RMB. Similarly, for petty dealers, they will also include the costs of plastic bags in the prices of goods. To be clearer, if the price of a good increase by 2 or 3 cents, most people will barely notice the change. Moreover, if sellers and dealers provide free plastic bags, they can attract customers to come back. Though plastic bags are merely 0.2 and 0.3 RMB, people still feel uncomfortable to pay for an extra amount.
Virtually, local markets and petty dealers have been two causes for why it’s hard to fight white pollution. It’s impossible to supervise numerous local markets and petty dealers all the time. Besides, petty dealers are flexible. In China, when they vend on streets, petty dealers may put their goods on self-made carts so that when supervisors come, they can quickly take all their goods and avoid being confiscated.
There are also other reasons why it has been not easy to fight white pollution. People feel uncomfortable with the life without plastic bags. Plastic bags are used also as containers for various things, such as food, clothes and trash. Even people who advocate plastic-bag ban feel awkward about this. White pollution is hard to root out for these reasons. There are as well many other reasons. Because of these reasons, it’s understandable that white pollution cannot be eradicated completely for all people. Based on this, my research aims to see that does plastic-bag ban changes young students individually on their shopping behaviors.
My research checks whether plastic-bag ban changes students’ shopping behaviors when they are in U.S and in China. I send out survey to 158 Chinese international students in various states in U.S. and 54 responded. My research asks four questions. They are:
1. In U.S, what’s the average number of plastic bags you use weekly?
2. In China, what’s the average number of plastic bags you use weekly?
3. In China, will you bring your own shopping bags?
4. In China, will you bring your own shopping bags?
From the results I received, it can be seen that most students use fewer than 5 plastic bags each week. However, when students are in China, about 10 percent of them tend to increase their use of plastic bags to 5 to 10. This may because they stay on campus and study in U.S. Yet when they go back to China, they hang out with friends and entertain themselves. Still the amount of plastic bags used is relatively small individually. Moreover, it shows that 75.44% students never bring their own shopping bags in U.S. Yet in China, only 28.81% students never bring their own shopping bags. Though in China, 22.03% students always bring their own shopping bags, 49.15% students choose that sometimes they will bring their own shopping bags. In Q3 and Q4, the percent of students who will always bring their own shopping bags is both the smallest, which are 5.26 and 22.03 separately. However, when in China, the percent of students who will sometimes bring their shopping bags is 49.15, and is really close to half of the entire group of students.
Though students who will always bring their own shopping bags are relatively fewer, from my results, it can be told that there’s a sign that students are restrained by plastic-bag ban. In China, students have the awareness not to buy plastic bags in supermarkets, because they sometimes bring their own shopping bags. It’s also possible that in certain condition, students do not foresee their needs to go to supermarkets, and thus don’t bring shopping bags with them. The difference in the survey results shows that students are aware of plastic-bag ban. If they didn’t know the ban, it’s reasonable to believe that they might answer differently. So the plastic-bag ban does have an effect on Chinese international students.
Another reason why I value the results from Chinese international students is that when students grow older and be parents, they can teach their children about the harm of white pollution and cultivate children’s consciousness about using plastic bags less often. Based on above, one of my suggestions is to advertise the drawbacks of white pollution more widely.
The other suggestion is to charge plastic bags more. Instead of 0.2 and 0.3 RMB, charge each bag for 1 to 1.5 RMB. In China, a bottle of water is about 1 RMB. In this way, people will definitely be more aware of the prices of plastic bags and further alert them to always bring their own shopping bags. If people forget to bring their own shopping bags, they will have to spend the price of a bottle of water to buy one plastic bag, which seems quite not worthy.
Overall, my website introduces the harmfulness of white pollution itself and the other kinds of pollution caused by it. For instance, soil pollution. To deal with white pollution, one method Chinese government employs is to legislate plastic-bag ban, yet there are so many resist forces, such as small businesses. It has been hard to fight white pollution. Based on my research results, my solutions to white pollution is that to educate young people and raise the prices of plastic bags.