I had an interesting discussion the other day with a very nice woman selling newspapers near the Wanchai MTR. I was curious as to why she had put the English newspapers into plastic bags (out of habit), when usually vendors do not put bags on the English press, as there must be less demand from English readers not wanting bags. So, I asked why she put all of her papers in bags. She replied “I don’t want to, it costs me money, but if I don’t then people will buy papers from elsewhere.” I said, “really, you think people can’t carry a newspaper without a bag?”

We all used to carry papers without a bag eight years ago before the “bag wars” came to town.

This is a perfect case of Hong Kong’s “lazy fare” society not working.

Our officials are afraid to regulate on anything, for fear of losing that dubious “free-ist economy in the world” award by the Heritage Foundation. Without regulations, you don’t have changes, improvements or innovation, so muddling-along we go. In the case of newspaper bags, there is zero economic value to having these slipped on the papers each day, as they are only to be ripped off and put in the bin a few minutes later. These plastic bags cannot be easily re-used, and once tossed into the general trash, they will not be recycled. We are simply being given “new” waste with our paper, only to turn it to “old” waste minutes later. Go figure.

The reason for the bag’s conquest of the newspaper world was when the newspaper wars hit and someone thought it would be so clever to include a packet of free tissues with the paper. Because someone figured that people could not possibly carry a packet of tissues and newspaper at the same time in this busy city, thus they were given a bag. Competition started, and then the “psychology of being different set in,” – meaning everyone had to keep up with the others, for fear of losing customers.

So, without regulation to help solve some of our trash problems (and yes, these bags do get into the ocean), and help all of these newspaper vendors save money, we'll see no improvement in the situation.
 

Consumers get fresh waste, while the vendors have an extra cost to deal with. An across the board ban on newspaper bags would put everyone on a level playing field, a field that is more profitable and better for our planet. Is that a tough one to digest?