Australians carry bags on the street
On the streets of Sydney, I often see people carrying or carrying large bags with bright green rectangles. I don't know why such bags are popular in Sydney.
When I arrived in Melbourne, I saw that people there also liked to carry a big rectangular bag, but the color was mostly bright rose red.
I asked my Melbourne friend asen why such colorful bags were popular here. He told me it was "green shopping bags", often referred to simply as "green bags". The plastic bag is still available free at supermarkets in Australia, but customers are more likely to resist the bag and use it instead. Each supermarket supplies reusable bags, which are priced at 9.9 cents, or more than 6 yuan.
Asen's words, the green bag mystery to me. I graduated from Beijing university in chemistry. I understand that transparent plastic bags, which are available free of charge in supermarkets, are usually made of polythene or polyvinyl chloride. After polyethylene plastic, polyvinyl chloride plastic becomes rubbish, decompose hard, caused pollution to the environment. Because of this, Australia advocates replacing polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride plastic bags with environmentally friendly bags.
After returning to Sydney from Melbourne, my wife and I went to a supermarket specially. When we saw the green bags on sale at the exit, my wife bought three of them and joined the fashion team of carrying bags. Sydney friend Mr. Wang heard that we like green bags so much, we took three from home to give us. This kind of environmental bag is made of non-woven cloth. Mr. Wang told me that the environmental bags cost more than 9 cents. In order to promote the replacement of plastic bags with green bags, the Australian government has lowered the price of green bags in order to make ordinary people happy to accept them. Considering the high cost of producing environmental bags in Australia, the Australian government has commissioned Chinese companies to produce environmental bags. So, the environmental bags that are popular on the streets of Australia are mostly made in China. But while China produces a lot of green bags for Australia, in China itself, they have not become fashionable.
In the United States, the trendy eco-friendly shopping bag, launched in 2007, is handmade from silk and calfskin and can be folded into the size of a wallet, and costs as much as $96. The UK's "I'm not a plastic bag" stylish eco-friendly shopping bag, which costs $15, is also not widely available. Australia's eco-bags are popular, costing less than $1.
Friends in Sydney also told me that between 7.30pm and 8.30pm on March 31, 2007, businesses, government departments and individuals in Sydney stopped using electrical appliances for one hour in order to respond with actions to save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming. The world's leading environmental organization, the world conservation fund, and one of Australia's largest newspapers, the Sydney morning herald, recently launched a campaign called "earth time" with widespread support. In Sydney, the lights in the office are turned off all night and the computers in the office are turned on all day. This "one hour of darkness" campaign helps strengthen the environmental awareness of the citizens of Sydney, the concept of energy conservation.
