The first week of China's enforcement of the plastic bag ban -- or, as some prefer, "restrictive policies" -- has been a little chaotic. A pregnant woman in her second trimester was actually injured and hospitalized by store employees in a dispute over a U.S. 3-cent plastic bag.

The woman, Ms. Zhang, was shopping with her sister, who wanted to purchase two packs of cosmetic facial masks and turned down the store's plastic bag at the store check out counter. The cashier insisted the items be put in a 0.20 yuan carrier bag. The two women couldn't make sense of the unreasonable policy and started to leave, when the cashier pointed at their backs, accusing them of being cheap. The Zhang sisters felt humiliated and turned around to argue. A reporter from Oriental Today said the store surveillance video showed that a female store manager got physical with the sisters and hit them with a walkie-talkie. As a result, Ms. Zhang was hospitalized with a head injury.

Apparently, the customer is not always right in China. The Zhang sisters were basically bullied by the store. There's a lot to be said about the Chinese service industry and consumers' rights in general, but in this case, the poorly established and enforced plastic bag ban deserves some of the blame.

Why do I say that? Because the government has put so much emphasis on "plastic bags must be at a charge" and "retailers must sell bags for more than they cost," that the point of the ban -- environmental protection -- is being tossed aside and, instead, empowers retailers over consumers.

In this environment, stores abuse their power and harm customers' benefits, not to mention their well-being, as was the case for Ms. Zhang.

Much publicity has been made on the new bag production standards and inspection methods, but there's no official instruction on how the retail industry should enforce the ban. That's why the store in Ms. Zhang' case dared to force the purchase of a plastic bag when the customer preferred no bag at all -- a much more eco-friendly option than buying a bag. The poorly explained and misinformed policy provides a perfect loophole for retailers to take advantage and profit from the sale of bags, completely ignoring the ban’s mission in the first place: to reduce the use of plastic bags.