Page 368 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 2019
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Review of plastic shopping bag ban
Ministerial statement
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee—Minister for City Services, Minister for Community Services and Facilities, Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Minister for Roads) (10.36): I welcome the opportunity to report back to the Assembly on the government response to the recent review of the efficacy of the ACT’s plastic shopping bag ban undertaken by the ACT Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment. I am responding to the commissioner’s report on behalf of the ACT government, as the responsible minister for the Plastic Shopping Bags Ban Act 2010, which moved to my portfolio in August 2018.
The commissioner’s report, Unfantastic plastic: review of the ACT plastic shopping bag ban, was tabled on 20 September 2018. We commend the commissioner and her staff for this report, which challenges us to question what success looks like in the context of our plastic bag ban, and frames potential changes to the ban in the context of a broader approach to single-use plastic. I thank the Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, Mr Shane Rattenbury, for commissioning the report as the then minister responsible for the Plastic Shopping Bags Ban Act.
Scientists estimate that 90.5 per cent of all plastic waste ever made has never been recycled and still exists in some shape or form. Plastic can be an incredibly versatile material, found in virtually every example of recent human endeavour. Plastics are light, useful, durable and cheap to produce and can last for centuries or more in the right conditions.
However, in recent decades, our fondness for single-use plastic, particularly items in use for a short time such as plastic cutlery, cups, straws, packaging and lightweight plastic bags, has grown considerably. It is estimated that 10 million straws are used in Australia every day. They can take up to 200 years to degrade, and they will never biodegrade into micro-particles. Plastic straws used today will outlive your children’s children’s children.
Plastic bags have become a symbol of our throwaway society. It was noted at the time of the ACT’s plastic bag ban that one of the benefits of banning plastic bags was to raise community awareness of broader environmental and sustainability issues. The ACT was the third jurisdiction in Australia to introduce a ban on single-use plastic shopping bags, by way of the Plastic Shopping Bags Ban Act 2010, which came into effect in November 2011.
The ban was introduced to restrict the supply of single-use lightweight plastic bags in the territory and encourage the uptake of reusable shopping bags. The ban prohibits the supply of plastic bags that are less than 35 microns thick and made in whole or part from polyethylene. It makes an exception for biodegradable, compostable bags. The ban does not include integrated produce bags, the thin plastic bags in the fruit and veg section of a supermarket, and does not require retailers to charge for the sale of thicker plastic bags, although many choose to.
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