Plastics that pollute waterways, litter parks and neighbourhoods, and contaminate recycling efforts are set to be phased out, the NSW Government has announced.
The state’s NSW Plastics Plan will phase out the use of items like heavyweight plastic shopping bags and plastic confectionary sticks, and small items like soy sauce fish containers.
Other items to be removed include expanded plastic packaging, plastic pizza savers, plastic bread tags, and plastic balloon sticks and ties. These items are already banned in other states.
Under the State Government’s Plastics Plan, fruit and vegetable stickers will have to become compostable and single use coffee cups will be required to be recyclable.
The plan will also stop the releases of helium balloons, which often end up in waterways and are lethal to marine wildlife.
“Plastic breaks down into microplastic. Microplastics are entering our bodies and polluting our environment and oceans, killing our wildlife,” said NSW Environment Minister, Penny Sharpe.
“Consumers want to do the right thing and use less plastic. This will help make the right choice the easy choice.
“We will work closely with industry, small businesses, manufacturers, retailers and councils to support a smooth transition to less plastic and safer recycling alternatives.”
Plastic remains one of NSW’s biggest environmental challenges. A new baseline study by the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and the NSW Environment Protection Authority has measured microplastics in coastal waterways to show the extent of plastic pollution in the environment, with microplastics detected in every waterway sampled.
Read the NSW Government’s Plastics Plan 2.0 here – https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/Your-environment/Plastics/plastics-plan-20.
View the full microplastics report here – https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/broadscale-microplastics-assessment.
