Prohibition of thin non-woven bags, the draft of Hainan's Banned Plastic List (third batch) is released
On June 28, the Hainan Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment drafted and issued the "List of Disposable Non-degradable Plastic Products Prohibited from Production and Sales in Hainan Province (The Third Batch) (Draft for Comment)", which included non-woven fabrics with a grammage specification of <120g/m². Shopping bags are included in the list of banned plastics. The comment period is from June 28, 2022 to July 27, 2022.
Non-woven shopping bags are often referred to as non-woven bags. The gram weight of non-woven fabrics refers to the weight per square meter, generally ranging from 20g/m² to 140g/m². Also the better. It is understood that the weight of non-woven bags used in farmers' markets is usually about 30g/m², and the weight of non-woven bags provided by supermarkets is usually about 80g/m².
Since the implementation of the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the Control of Plastic Pollution" in 2021, the prohibition on the production and sale of ultra-thin plastic shopping bags with a thickness of less than 0.025 mm has achieved obvious results, but some businesses have produced "thin" plastic shopping bags in order to avoid the prohibition policy. The replacement of shopping bags with non-woven bags violates the original intention of the plastic restriction order to a certain extent.
Because in real life scenarios, this "ultra-thin" non-woven fabric is usually used as a garbage bag. A survey found that nearly 30% of non-woven bags are used as garbage bags, which is a huge waste. 42.6% of the respondents said that non-woven bags would not be used outside because of their "poor quality" and "unsightly".
However, the public has a vague understanding of the pollution problem of this non-woven fabric. It is generally misunderstood that the non-woven bag is a cloth bag that can be degraded. In fact, it is made of polyolefin plastic, which is difficult to degrade even if it is leaked into the natural environment for hundreds of years.
