By 2025 China has communicated, through the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology, that it will ban a large proportion of single-use plastics. It will start with large urban centres and continue into smaller villages and the route will of course be gradual. First a ban on the production and sale of single-use plastic bags, then a ban on non-biodegradable single-use plastic products, but also on items such as cotton staples and single-use food packaging, which are difficult to recycle. Just think that some university researches (from the University of Shenzhen and Michigan), have observed how the trade and sale of food at home has let to about 1.6 million tons of packaging waste alone (data from 2017). This is not a small problem for a country in continuous economic expansion.

The idea began this year: by the end of 2020, shopping centres, supermarkets and restaurants will be banned from using the incriminated objects. In particular, plastic straws will be the first products to be taken off the market, followed by plastic tableware and, finally, packaging. Even receptive structures such as hotels will undertake, by 2025, to remove the presence of single-use plastic articles for their customers, those little objects that we often find inside hotel rooms, from plastic toothbrushes to mini soap packages. The aim is obviously to encourage the use of alternative and environmentally friendly materials, but also to encourage waste recycling and separate collection at least in the immense Asian metropolises. In the same way, imports of plastic and paper waste from abroad will be reduced and the revenue from waste that can be more easily recycled will also be encouraged.