New South Wales, Australia, seeks comments on new proposals to reduce plastic waste 
In New South Wales (NSW), Australia, “NSW Plastics: The Way Forward” (Draft for Consultation), which sets out proposals for reducing plastic use in the future, was released on September 8th, 2024 and its public consultation began. The deadline for submitting comments is November 4th, 2024. It proposes a wide range of measures, including a ban on single-use plastics, restrictions on harmful chemicals in food packaging, the introduction of performance evaluations for washing machines to reduce microfibers, and the gradual abolition of expanded polystyrene (EPS). The regulations mentioned here are scheduled to be implemented by partially revising the “Plastic Reduction and Circular Economy Act 2021 No 31” or other legislation.
The proposed plan to reduce plastic waste consists of three categories: “Reduce plastic litter”, “Reduce harmful chemicals in plastics and microplastics”, and “Keep pace on plastic action.” The specific details of each are as follows.
Reduce plastic litter
Reduce littering of takeaway food and beverage packaging
By end 2025
- Phase out the supply of single-use plastic lollipop sticks
By end 2027
- Require food service venues such as fast-food restaurants and cafes to accept reusable cups. We will also trial reusable cups in government premises and develop reuse toolkits for reuse only precincts
- Require single-use plastic cups for cold beverages, single-use plastic food containers, and their lids to be recyclable
- Require takeaway food service venues to display anti-litter messaging in their shopfronts
- Require anti-littering labels and the Australasian Recycling Label on single-use plastic cups, single-use plastic food containers and single serve condiment packages
By end of 2030
- Require single-serve condiment packages to be recyclable, supported by a co-designed roadmap that will take them towards circularity
- Explore expanding Return and Earn to accept single-use plastic cups for cold beverages and takeaway plastic food containers
- Require plastic lids to be tethered to Return and Earn-eligible plastic bottles <600 ml, and work with other states and territories to ensure container deposit schemes across Australia accept plastic bottle lids
Reduce littering of cigarette butts
By end 2027
- Work with other Australian jurisdictions on a national approach to reduce the harmful impact of cigarette butts in the environment
Using our litter data
By end 2025
- Explore options to make litter data reporting more transparent, including publishing the brand data of littered items
- Consider requiring brand owners of highly littered plastic items to set litter reduction targets
Reduce harmful chemicals in plastics and microplastics
Eliminate harmful chemicals in food packaging
By end 2027
- Publish a ‘green list’ of chemicals that can be used in food packaging below certain tolerable risk thresholds
- Publish a ‘red list’ of chemicals that are proposed to be phased out of food packaging within specified timeframes
- Support increased chemical testing capacity for packaging in NSW
- Introduce a voluntary chemical certification and labelling scheme for food packaging, to be made mandatory in five years
Reduce microplastics in the environment
By end 2025
- Phase out the supply of plastics containing pro-degradant additives (oxo-, photo-, and landfill-degradable plastics)
- Phase out plastic microbeads from all cleaning products
By end 2027
- Require new washing machines to be rated on their ability to capture and reduce microfibres
Keep pace on plastic action
Plastic shopping and barrier bags
By end 2025
- Adopt Queensland’s reuse and recycled content standards for heavyweight plastic film shopping bags
- Require plastic shopping bags to be stored out of sight at the point of purchase and only provided on request, unless they are clearly designed for reuse or are part of an extended producer responsibility scheme for plastic recycling.
By end 2027
- Phase out the supply of unnecessary plastic barrier bags
- Require anti-littering labels and the Australasian Recycling Label on plastic shopping bags and plastic barrier bags
- Eliminate harmful chemicals from plastic shopping bags and plastic barrier bags
Small food packaging items
- Phase out the supply of plastic pizza savers
- Phase out the supply of plastic food tags for bread, bakery and dry pantry items, with a temporary exemption for plastic tags for produce bags until end 2029
By end 2030
- Require fruit and vegetable stickers and their adhesives to be certified compostable
Balloons
By end 2025
- Phase out the release of lighter-than-air balloons
- Phase out the supply of plastic balloon sticks, clips and ties
Expanded plastic packaging
By end 2025
- Adopt Western Australia’s approach to phase out the supply of food trays, loose-fill packaging, and moulded or cut packaging made of expanded and foamed plastic.
Proposed Regulations on Food Packaging Materials
One of the main points of this proposal is to “eliminate harmful chemical substances in food packaging materials.” As mentioned above, there are plans to create a “green list” and a “red list” of chemical substances, but the specific details of these are not mentioned in the proposal document. In this regard, local industry has requested that the proposal be consistent with the federal chemical control regulation, “The Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management Standard (IChEMS).”
Relevant pages
- Public Consultation Page for this Proposal
https://yoursay.epa.nsw.gov.au/nsw-plastics-way-forward - “NSW Plastics: The Way Forward (Draft for Consultation)”
https://hdp-au-prod-app-nswepa-yoursay-files.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/2017/2578/6913/NSW-plastics-way-forward-consultation-draft.pdf - Press release by EPA of NSW
https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/news/media-releases/2024/epamedia240909-next-steps-to-tackle-problematic-plastics-for-a-cleaner-and-safer-nsw - Plastic Reduction and Circular Economy Act 2021 No 31
https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2021-031
