The campaign underscores the vitality of China's fledgling environmental movement, a ragtag collection of groups and individuals who operate in a gray area outside state control but never entirely free from it. And the Finance Ministry is reportedly preparing a new tax on throwaway chopsticks to discourage their use. Whether the government is truly responding to pressure from environmentalists is debatable. But the chopstick activism demonstrates a changing sense of the individual's relationship with the state, one that demands initiative, responsibility and participation from citizens. Just two decades ago, the government controlled nearly all aspects of people's lives, from jobs to housing to education.
Chopsticks are just an example.
People are beginning to ponder even ordinary things. Zhang began thinking about the environment as a child in the northeastern industrial city of Benxi. She recalls being taught about the constellations in elementary school, then wondering why she could never see more than a few stars in the sky. I never saw a blue sky growing up. But it was not until college that Zhang concluded that she individually could make a difference.