The Daily O’Collegian

On June 1, the Chinese government will enact a ban on ultra-thin plastic shopping bags.

By doing so, the Chinese are taking a leadership position on a growing environmental threat — plastic pollution.

But the Chinese are no environmental darlings.

In their rapid industrialization, the Chinese have encountered many of the problems western countries faced but on a scale only 1.3 billion people can deliver.

China’s air pollution from industry and coal power plants, soil degradation, and water depletion and pollution are all environmental problems seemingly more pressing than addressing the use of plastic bags for grocery shopping.

But in the simple mandate to ban plastic grocery bags, the Chinese government is demonstrating an environmental policy that should embarrass United States leadership.

Besides the aesthetic harm of litter, plastic bags pose various threats to the environment.

The bags can take hundreds of years to break down, and in breaking down, contaminate soil and water.

The bags can be mistaken for food by animals, killing them.

Justification for the ban lies in the fact that the bags break easily, are not recycled enough, and direct plastic feedstock away from other uses, such as energy production, according to the Chinese government’s English-language Web site.

The Web site reported China uses 3 billion plastic shopping bags per day and the prevalence of their usage is endangering the environmental.

America uses roughly 100 billion plastic bags a year, according to the Plastic Bag Alliance, a consortium of plastic bag manufacturers.

Although America uses far fewer bags than China, it is hard not to notice their presence in our lives and our environment.

Plastic bags are a ubiquitous part of shopping in America.

Store clerks have been trained as a matter of course to put practically everything in a plastic bag for customers.

Thanks to efforts by Wal-mart and other stores that offer in-house plastic bag recycling bins, recycling of the material is made easier.

However, recycling of plastic bags is not taking place on a significant scale. According to the Plastic Bag Alliance, 9 percent of landfill waste is plastic, half of that in plastic bags and films.

Recycling is not enough. The only way to reduce the prevalence of plastic grocery bags escaping and contaminating the environment is to bring them out of circulation.

China aims to replace the plastic bags with durable and reusable fabric or fiber bags, that have the added benefit of being biodegradeable.

The country will be joining others that have banned or limited the use of plastic grocery bags. Places like Uganda, Bangladesh, South Africa and San Francisco have policies in place against plastic shopping bag use. The United States should join them.