Day Ninety: plastic bags on their way out?

Yesterday, China became the most recent - and the largest - country to introduce a ban on plastic bags. It will take effect from June this year, according to coverage from BBC online. Not only is this an important move for China domestically, given its urgent need to improve local environmental sustainability and public health, it has also raised the stakes internationally. First to react was the Canadian city of Toronto. The article from the Toronto Star newspaper linked here (click on the post title above) asks the question on many people's lips: if a relatively poor nation of 1.3 billion people can see a way to break its plastic bag addiction, why can't the richer countries of the world do the same? Quite probably, they will, in the not too distant future. And if China begins to take radical, positive steps on other environmental issues - such as air and water pollution, CO2 emissions and chemicals in food - that would be even more significant. For China, and for the world as a whole.