Tasmania, Australia seeks comments on draft single-use plastics phase-out plan

On August 20, 2024, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania released the discussion paper “Phasing out Problematic Single-Use Plastics in Tasmania” and began seeking public comment. The deadline for submitting comments is October 1, 2024. According to the discussion paper, the phase-out of single-use plastics in Tasmania is proposed to implement in two stages. Regulated single-use plastics includes not only single-use tableware (bowls, plates, cups, etc.) and microbeads, but also EPS packaging such as EPS loose-fill packaging, EPS molded packaging.

In October 2024, the Tasmanian Government issued the “Tasmanian Waste and Resource Recovery Strategy 2023-2026”, which provides a vision and strategic framework for collaborative and focused effort for Tasmania to be a place where nothing is wasted. The single-use plastics phase-out plan was established under the Strategy 2023-2026 to promote the ban on single-use plastics.