i'm a plastic bag

We hate plastic bags. Those bags we carry out of supermarkets everyday end up accumulating in landfills and damaging our environment. Conservation groups have urged the government to discourage the use of plastic bags and are winning widening support from the public. One of their proposals is to introduce a tax on plastic bags, or plastax. That's a fixed amount of taxation for every bag consumed. To many, it sounds to be a good idea to affect the behavior of thrifty households. But i have a different theory.

What is a plastic bag? Why supermarkets give it for free?

Isn't a plastic bag a free gift a supermarket gives for customers' convenience? Obviously, negative. Business is anything but philanthropy. Take a convenience store as an example. The cashier almost always asks whether you need a bag or not. If your answer is negative, he is trained to please you with a loud slogan: "Thank you for caring the environment." Indeed, the owner of the convenience store thanks you for saving him a bag. In the supermarket, the cashier never asks that question. Neither does he say anything to encourage you to refuse a bag.

Why the convenience store and the supermarket take different attitudes toward a plastic bag? The answer is, from the convenience store, you seldom buy more than you need, whereas, from the supermarket, you do. In the convenience store, you grasp a bottle of soft drink and some snacks, and go, because you know if you need anything else, you may always find another convenience store within a few footsteps. The convenience store chain knows they cannot make you buy more than you need, except, an extra chocolate bar and that's it.

Supermarket business is a different game. We go to supermarket to buy anything. We do have a shopping list or some idea what we need in advance. But we often get more than we need. Some economists or business gurus attribute the excessive purchase to the successful marketing strategies and the tactics of store layout. But few people observe the pragmatic bottom line. "How are we going to carry the extra stuff out of the supermarket?" Have you ever asked such a question? i never.

Without plastic bags, the amount of stuff purchased is limited to the size of your own bag. And the size of your bag depends on what you plan to buy before leaving home. Now, fully accustomed to the infinite supply of plastic bags, free of charge, that question is pointless. Supermarket knows it. Plastic bags are not for you to carry the stuff you need. They are to carry the stuff you don't need. That's why, unlike convenience store, supermarket never praises you for "caring the environment".

Supermarket wants you to understand that you don't have to worry about carrying the extra stuff even though you are not prepared to carry them. Then, it wants you to walk proudly out to the street, carrying its bags.

Have you ever noticed that there are two different kinds of plastic bags in supermarket? The obvious one is that cashier supplies, on both sides of which is printed with big and bright logo of the supermarket. The less obvious, but as common, is the smaller one that wraps wet stuff like meat, fish and vegetables. This one is faceless, all white without any logo or graphic design. Why are the two kinds so different? The answer is the faceless one sits inside the bright one when you walk out to the street and doesn't show up.

If you believe that a labeled bag is for you to distinguish what being bought from where, you are wrong. Of course, the label does serve such a purpose, but it cannot be the reason for the label to exist in the first place. A labeled bag is for other people to see, for advertising.

Remember the last time you brought a T-shirt and received an oversized carton sack from the boutique. Nothing advertises better than showing someone else is buying. Take a gas station as another example. Gasoline is the least sexy product apart from electricity. Unlike the monopolistic utility companies, gasoline companies compete with each other, if not in pricing. There is no way to tell which car has had its tank filled up by which gas company. The "labeled bag" strategy cannot work because there needs no bag. However, the marketing people do a little trick.

Gas stations give out free boxes of tissue paper with their logos printed on it. Naturally, you put the little box behind the backseat. And, by doing so, you do the gas station a favor by broadcasting an advertisement about the gas station. The audience is all the drivers behind you.

When you walk out to the street carrying the plastic bag of the supermarket, you do the advertising for the supermarket. The more bags you carry, the more physically challenged you look, the better.

i buy more than i need. i help it advertise. Plastic bag and i cannot be separated. From supermarket's viewpoint, i am a plastic bag.

It is the supermarket, not the consumer, who loves plastic bags. Imagine the government launches plastax and the number of consumers who accept plastic bags drops drastically. What would happen in the supermarket? First, shoppers have to leave behind some of the stuff they otherwise would purchase because they haven't prepared enough bags of their own. Second, they all come out the supermarket without a single hint at whether they have bought anything. Turning the street corner, nobody even knows they have ever shopped at where. If you were one of the supermarket owners, would you let that happen?

Supermarkets will do anything to protect plastic bags. For example, they would bear the cost of plastax. They would give out bonuses or coupons to keep you using plastic bags. As long as the plastax is lower than the cost of those bags made of recyclable and environment-friendly materials, supermarkets will keep plastic bags. The bottom-line is you can buy as much as you want and help do the advertising.

Then, all parties are happy, except smaller grocery shops and the start-ups. These smaller competitors don't have the resources to bear the cost of plastax. Neither can they upgrade the bag materials. In the end, plastax will stop small shops from providing customers' convenience, but it cannot stop supermarkets from giving out plastic bags. i believe plastax is one of the many examples that laws and regulations create unnecessarily biased business environment against entrepreneurs and in favor of big firms.

Quamnet column

聽民意=反競爭?

多謝brian就前文的回應。

根據brian所說，公平競爭法是一場政治show，不是經濟和社會上的考慮，茶怪想後果會好嚴重，通過法案初期，是皆大歡喜的，政府打擊官商勾結「不遺餘力」，同時，與民主派在「非政治」領域合作關係良好; 民主派看來成功為市民爭取了些東西; 市民對大財團的氣也消減。但當法例實施之後未見成效，市民的打擊對象大超市，沒有受到任何影響，如常「欺負」供應商，貧富懸殊問題持續，這樣，民間繼續有不滿聲音，自然有更多人走出來「代表民意」，要求進一步立法，加大促進公平競爭法的力度，政府方面，想，以此作為政治籌碼幾好，成本低，風險低，形象好。如是者，出現惡性循環，不斷有新條文加入。

更多的繁文縟節，受害者反應是中小企，因為他們沒有大狀律師，與政府的關係又不及大財團，要依法申請，填form，請律師、會計師，成本一定增加，而且等候批文時間又延長了。更重要的，是繁文縟節必然減少中小企靈活變通的可能性，可知中小企要與大財團競爭，人力物力一定輸蝕，唯一可以取勝的是靠靈活變通，正如聖經記載年少時的大衛王如何打敗巨人一樣。當然中小企勝大財團不是甚麼神話故事，google贏yahoo就是實證。

靈活變通就是生意上的創意，創意就是社會進步的條例，你諗到偈，我又有好橋，雖然不是每個新辦法都成功，但是有效的市場，就是不斷地進行trial and error，飛沙走石，每個人，企業都有機會成功。在有效的市場，企業不論大小，都要不斷求變，去競爭，去進步，這樣社會才有希望。

很多對大財團的指控，是源於他們的市場地位，以至享受極高的議價能力。茶怪想，一場球賽，永無咁高咁大，曼聯對韋斯咸你話公唔公平? 一隊榜首，一隊榜尾，曼聯有錢，請最好的球員、領隊，又如何，一樣有機會輸，對球迷來說，球賽公平與否，不是看牌面，而是看球證如何執法，有沒有偏幫，如果無，球賽就是公平，雙方一定全力以赴。足球比賽規例簡單，就是維持球賽公平的最佳方法。球例愈複雜，球證可以影響賽果的空間便愈大。

少立法，多執法

看新聞有時覺得好好笑，甚麼東西都算到政府頭上，尤其是星期日的電視新聞，環保團體指戶外廣告牌上燈泡太多，要政府立法規管，其他包括工人保障、家庭紛爭、愛護動物等問題，也要政府立法，或發上指引，茶怪想，政府怎麼辨? 它有能力對各行各業了解清楚? 究竟一個廣告牌應掛多少個燈泡，才算合理? 太多的法例只會幫倒忙，如何確實執行現有的法例更重要。廣告牌太亮，有否影響鄰居作息? 觸犯滋擾條例?

另一個好無聊的規例，是對付小巴超速問題，不知是誰想出來的主意，規定每輛小巴須安裝超速警告器，它全程顯示車速，每當超速，它就發出吵耳的bb聲響，它還印有小巴的車牌。作用是提醒乘客，叫他們如有不滿可投訴。結果，你都知，小巴繼續超速，超速警告器不停響，要乘客繼續坐過山車之餘，還要忍受噪音。小巴商又要承擔安裝警告器的成本，長期測驗和維修又是錢。 還有路段不同，車速限制不一，警告器沒有辦法因應不同路段的需要發揮「作用」。

其實要防止小巴超速方法好簡單 -- 抄牌，你一超速，就收「牛肉干」。執法不夠嚴謹，再立一千條例也沒用。

社會反對壟斷聲音此起彼落，要求政府訂立「公平競爭法」，思維方向和上述廣告牌的類似，就是有問題，就立法，茶怪對此有所保留，立法是否可以解決問題? 大財團有好多大狀律師幫手，與政府關係又好，取得waiver好易，繁文縟節只會加重中小企負擔。事實上，問題不在於現有的法例足夠與否，而是執行夠不夠徹底。以地產商為例，他們被指在賣地過程中達成協議，成功避免競爭。其實這類協議可能觸犯現有的競投法例，但事情不了了之。