A bakery in Shanghai's suburban Minhang district was recently penalized for its use of indissoluble plastic straws, becoming the first case of the city's strict enforcement of last year's amended Law on Prevention and Control of the Solid Waste Pollution.

The bakery was found with 300 indissoluble straws in store to be provided to customers. In accordance with the country's most stringent legal provisions to prohibit the use of polypropylene-made plastic products, the store received a warning and a fine of 10,000 yuan (US$1,563). The amount was the minimum level of the penalty, with the maximum at 100,000 yuan as stipulated by the latest law amendment.

According to the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation, the city has tightened law enforcement with increasingly frequent on-site inspections to eradicate the use of indissoluble plastics and lavish packaging. In particular, the authority aims to combat the sales of prohibited plastic products on e-commerce platforms.

In a recent case, a business registered in the city's Baoshan district was found selling prohibited disposable tableware on an e-commerce platform. The law enforcement authority confiscated 97,760 products from the company and took the products down from the online store. The authority is now tracing the source of the supplier in order to warn the local supervisory body.

Starting this year, Shanghai has banned the distribution of indissoluble plastic products such as disposable shopping bags and wraps in all supermarkets, shopping malls, pharmaceutical stores, and book stores. It has also banned the use of indissoluble wraps in food delivery services as well as disposable tableware in restaurants. The restrictive policies also apply in wholesale markets, with exemptions for prepackaging, rolling bags, and freshness protection packages.

According to the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation, the law is the strictest one on the use of plastic products.

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)