(CNN) -- China is banning free plastic bags common at shops and supermarkets and ordering customers to be charged for any they use, the government said Wednesday.
Shoppers in Beijing and other Chinese cities will have to pay for using plastic bags, starting in June.
The rules, which take effect June 1, come as the country tries to tackle a significant source of litter, a statement on the government's Web site said.
The bags also are banned from all public transportation, including buses, trains and planes and from airports and scenic locations, the government said.
Companies caught breaking the new rules face fines and possible forfeiture of goods, the government said.
Shops have been instructed to mark the price of the plastic bags clearly and not fold them into the cost of other items.
Environmental organizations, including Greenpeace, praised China's move, and Christopher Flavin, president of Worldwatch Institute, an independent research organization in Washington, said "China is ahead of the U.S. with this policy," AP reported.
The Chinese use up to 3 billion plastic shopping bags a day.
Often, the flimsy bags are used once and discarded, adding to waste in a country grappling with air and water pollution as a result of rapid economic transformation, officials said.
"Our country consumes a large amount of plastic bags. While convenient for consumers, the bags also lead to a severe waste of resources and environmental pollution because of their excessive use and low rate of recycling," the statement at the Web site Gov.cn said. "The ultra-thin bags are the main source of 'white' pollution as they can easily get broken and end up as litter."
The government statement added, "We should encourage people to return to carrying cloth bags, using baskets for their vegetables."
More durable plastic bags still will be allowed for sale by markets and shops, The Associated Press reported.
When the ban goes into effect, China will join countries such as Uganda and South Africa, the statement said.
Bangladesh banned plastic bags four years ago when officials realized they blocked drains and led to flooding. Since then, customers have taken to using bags made of jute or cloth for shopping.
Last year, San Francisco, California, became the first U.S. city to outlaw plastic checkout bags at supermarkets. E-mail to a friend
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All About Nature and the Environment • China
The People's Republic of China has banned free plastic shopping bags in a move to take effect from June 1, 2008. The decision made by the Chinese Cabinet, the State Council, is intended to reduce the amount of plastic bags used in China, currently being estimated at three billion per day. The State Council also announced that at the same time as the ban, the manufacturing, sale and even use of very thin plastic bags, which are defined as being under 0.025mm thick, will be banned. Any company that does not follow this ban can be fined. 

The ban of free plastic bags and complete ban on very thin bags will, the government hopes, help reduce the amount of crude oil used for plastic packaging, which is currently at five million tonnes per year according to ''Times Online''. The notice issued by the Chinese government said: “We should encourage people to return to carrying cloth bags, using baskets for their vegetables.”

The People's Republic of China is not the first country to ban or restrict plastic shopping bags and the notice names Uganda and South Africa according to ''CNN''. Many supermarkets in the European Union have voluntarily adopted methods to reduce usage of plastic bags, which often also consist of charging for bags (e.g. Germany) or rewarding customer loyalty points for returning used carrier bags. Still, many of the world's leading polluting countries, including the United States of America, have not yet introduced any legislation intended to reduce the usage of plastic bags. The United States Environmental Protection Agency claimed that in 2000 only 1% of plastic bags in the United States were recycled. 

The People's Republic of China has attracted a lot of attention in the past for having possibly the highest greenhouse emissions in the world, disproportionate to the size of its economy, according to ''The Telegraph''. ''Times Online'' quoted a Chinese activist as saying that plastic bags are not the main problem and the government needed to make people care more about the environment.