I was skimming the official Web site of the state-owned People's Daily, China's largest daily newspaper when something caught my eye. It was a sentence in plain English, which really stood out in the all Chinese-language Web site. On a photo of a cloth bag, were the words "I'm not a plastic bag."
Back when I wrote my first blog item about the famous "I'm not a plastic bag" designed by Anya Hindmarch last August, I checked the Internet and found plenty of pictures of apparent knockoffs. But they were underground, and they knew they were illegal.This one is different. The picture appears right under the authorities' noses, and in a well-respected newspaper, too! The one-paragraph story says: Many people were buying cotton bags that have the print of "I'm not a plastics bag" in front of a department store. The seller told the reporter that the production cost of one such bag is 10 yuan. However, in order to make consumers familiar with eco-friendly bags, it only sells for 2 yuan.Obviously, the quality of the bag is not comparable to the real "I'm not a plastic bag." The font and layout have been slightly changed, too. Since I'm not an expert on intellectual property laws, I'm not sure if I can call it a knockoff or not. However, if you want to educate Chinese consumers about the plastic reuse/recycle issue, why use the English slogan that many don't even know the meaning?Here's my view: Chinese consumers are being immersed by the strongest-ever "green washing." Businesses are so excited with the best-ever opportunities of marketing anything that's not apparent plastic. Anyone really care about sustainability? Energy and resources conservation? Green house gas emission? Just ask a random person on the street what the popular nonwoven "eco-friendly" shopping bags are made of, and I bet nine out 10 wouldn't know that the material still is plastic. Think about it, use cloth bags to replace plastic shopping bags might be a righteous and trendy thing, but not required by the laws. On the other hand, breaking the intellectual property laws is indeed illegal. When marketing schemes override the compliance with laws, whose agenda is driving the booming Chinese economy? |