Single-Use Plastic Ban | Western Australia

With growing consumer awareness of the environmental impact of single-use plastics, the West Australian government has taken important steps to address this concern. Introducing a Two Stage process to ban certain types of single-use plastics from use in retail environments. One June 13, the State Government announced it was fast-tracking Western Australia's Plan for Plastics. The roadmap for creating a plastic-free, sustainable WA is outlined below with information available for consumers and retailers available at wa.gov.au:

• prioritise avoiding single-use plastics
• replace single-use items with reusable alternatives wherever possible
• promote non-plastic single-use alternatives that can be recovered, recycled or composted, if it is not possible to use reusable items
• minimise litter or contamination of waste treatment facilities by not using single-use plastics

The implementation of the Two-Stage approach is shown below.

Stage One Bans

The WA single-use plastic ban stage 1 starts on 1 January 2022. Enforcement of stage 1 regulations will start on 1 July 2022 for all items except for cold clear cups, which starts on 1 October 2022.

It will be an offence to provide false or misleading information about banned items from the ban start date and it will be an offence to supply the following disposable plastic items from 1 July:

• Plastic plates
• Plastic bowls
• Plastic cutlery
• Plastic drink stirrers
• Plastic drinking straws
• Plastic bags with handles
• Expanded polystyrene takeaway food containers
• Helium balloon releases

It will be an offence to sell the following item from 1 October 2022:

• Plastic cups

Stage Two Bans

Medium-term bans to be introduced by the 1 January 2023 include the following plastic items:

• Barrier/produce bags
• Microbeads
• Polystyrene packaging
• Polystyrene cups
• Coffee cups and lids
• Cotton buds with plastic shafts
• Oxo-degradable plastics (plastics designed to break up more rapidly into fragments under certain conditions)

The plan also includes actions on pre-packed fruit and vegetables, takeaway food and beverage containers and plastic packaging.

The Focus at Marketplace Supplies

While it may sound like marketing nonsense, Marketplace Supplies are genuinely committed to creating a sustainable future for disposable packaging in Australia. As a business, we genuinely focus on growing prosperity and abundance in our community - and providing and promoting sustainable packaging is a hugely important part of that committment.

As official suppliers of BioPak products, we hope that we can reinforce this sustainable movement by supporting and promoting partners like BioPak - market leaders in creating sustainable, eco-friendly packaging products. If you'd like to know more, click on the links below, or contact one of our team to find out ways to integrate sustainable packaging into your business.