Letters and Blogs

Train food ban a healthy idea

Beijing commuters are not happy about the introduction of a food ban on the city's new metro line ("Commuters pan food ban" China Daily, July 15). But have you seen the mess left behind in subway trains? Commuters treat trains like waste bins: empty bottles under seats or rolling on the floor, plastic bags with scraps of food under or on the seats.

Many of the trains along the new lines that opened less than a year ago, before the Beijing Olympics, are filthy. Beverage containers and morsels of food are everywhere. Many of my friends in Beijing, when I visit their homes, ask me to take off my shoes and wear slippers. But when they're outside their homes, they throw waste anywhere and everywhere.