1 July marked the 2-year anniversary of New Zealand’s plastic bag ban. Over the course of those two years, more than 2 billion plastic bags have been taken out of circulation - significantly reducing the amount of plastic waste ending up in landfills, or waterways.
Ministry for the Environment Deputy Secretary, Sam Buckle, said the success of the plastic bag ban is a “huge credit” to all of Aotearoa.
Buckle emphasised the extent to which businesses and retailers had played an important part in that success.
We would like to thank businesses for their commitment and compliance. Businesses proactively getting on with the ban and building awareness among customers was a crucial step to success.
MfE led a compliance assurance programme for the ban, which included following up on public reports of suspected non-compliance and performing spot-checks at retailers across the country.
Over the course of the two year period the Ministry undertook nearly 2000 store visits. In more than 97% of cases, stores were already compliant.
The Ministry took a dual approach to the ban. It took proactive approach focussed on educating retailers about their obligations and supporting them to make compliant, environmentally conscious decisions that meet their customers’ needs.
In addition, the Ministry responded to more than 500 reports from the public about being provided with a suspected banned bag. We communicated with identified non-compliant parties and were able to reach compliance through education and advice. “On top of phasing out the single use plastic bags, many businesses were going above and beyond the spirit of the ban to provide more environmentally conscious bags and encourage customers to bring their own bags,” Buckle added.
The way New Zealanders have embraced the ban shows the appetite people have to reduce their impact on our environment. “The success of the plastic bag ban has been a catalyst for further work on waste and reducing the impact of plastic on the environment,” said Buckle.
Earlier this week, the Government announced a phase out of problem plastics and some single-use plastics by July 2025 [Beehive website].
The plastics to be phased out will be:
“Like the plastic bag ban, overseeing the phase out of these items according to the proposed timeline will be our goal. MfE is the primary regulator of the Waste Minimisation Act (WMA) 2008 and responsible for overseeing Aotearoa New Zealand’s environmental management systems. This stewardship role spans policy development, system stewardship and compliance monitoring and enforcement (CME) activities.” said Buckle.
See more information about the plastic bag ban in New Zealand and our compliance, monitoring and enforcement of the Waste Minimisation Act.
For media enquiries: media@mfe.govt.nz or 027 231 6930