This Day, That Year

Item from March 28, 1995, in China Daily: Beijing's streets are much cleaner than before - little or no rubbish is being dumped on the pavement or roadside. The improvement is attributed to the use of plastic bags and better transport and disposal of rubbish. ...

More than 550,000 households, half of the total number in the urban area, and 10,000 business and industrial groups, pack their rubbish in the plastic bags.

As part of efforts to fight pollution, authorities in 2008 introduced a ban on the production of ultra-thin versions of plastic bags and prohibited most retailers from giving plastic bags free to customers, with hygiene-based exemptions for raw meat and similar food products.