The biodegradable plastic garbage bags used at Beijing Olympics venues will be available on the Chinese market next year, it was announced at the "2008 International Forum on Green Materials and Biofuels" on Monday.

The Beijing New Material Development Center, which helped the Beijing Organizing Committee of the 29th Olympic Games (BOCOG) buy plastic bags, made the proposal.

The bags might cost about 1 yuan (about 14 US cents), said Zhang Jie, an official with the center.

Since the Olympics, more than 5 million of the bags have been processed.

All the bags were made of new materials and they degraded in one month through a composting process, said Yang Yichun, director of the Science and Technology Committee for the 29th Olympic Games at the forum on Sunday.

As part of its "Green Olympics" effort, BOCOG made seven kinds of bags available. More than 92 percent of the bags' content was completely biodegradable.

The forum, aimed at popularizing the biodegradable plastics developed for the Olympics, was co-organized by the Science and Technology Committee for the 29th Olympic Games and the International Center for Science and High Technology, United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

(Xinhua News Agency December 15, 2008)