• PHOTO: Coonamble Roadhouse Site Manager Maureen O’Farrell and her staff are already preparing for the transition away from lightweight plastic bags, due to come into law next month.
WE are just days away from the next steps to winding down single-use plastics in our state and local businesses say they are getting prepared for the transition.
The NSW Government ban on lightweight plastic bags will come into force on 1 June, not quite two years since their removal was first flagged in supermarkets and other retail outlets.
But bags are just the beginning, with “more problematic plastics” including cutlery, plates, straws, stirrers, polystyrene cups and takeaway foodware – and even cottonbuds – to be banned from November this year.
“Single-use plastic is used by many of us for just a few convenient minutes, but it remains in our environment for many years, eventually breaking into microplastics,” said Minister for Environment James Griffin.
“Single-use plastic items and packaging make up 60 per cent of all litter in NSW. By stopping the supply of problematic plastic in the first place, we’re helping prevent it from entering our environment as litter, or going into landfill.”
Last year, the NSW Government passed their Plastic Reduction and Circular Economy Act 2021 and the bans are part of the rollout of the Plastics Action Plan which aims to prevent almost 2.7 billion items of plastic litter from entering the environment in NSW over the next 20 years.
While government representatives say they are supporting small businesses across the state to phase-out the plastics, local business owners and managers are relying on their suppliers to help them transition.
“No-one has been coming to us to explain what to do and what not to do,” said Steven Butler of Swanny’s Foods, a local wholesaler who supplies most service stations, hotels, clubs and restaurants in our region. “We’re just naturally phasing out these products. We already changed to re-usable bags two months ago so no-one would get caught with unusable stock.”
At Coonamble Roadhouse, Site Manager Maureen O’Farrell says she has received emails about the ban but needs suppliers like Swannys to ensure that they can get the items they need, when they need them.
“We’ve already got our re-usable bags,” said Coonamble Roadhouse Site Manager Maureen O’Farrell. “By November we will transition to things like wooden forks.”
“We don’t use a lot of plastic. Truck drivers usually have utensils in their trucks and with takeaway food a lot of people take it home anyway.”
Mr Butler says it is not such a big leap to switch from lighter to heavier weight plastic bags but that other alternative items will take more getting used to.
“We will go from plastic cutlery to wood although they tell me some people don’t like to use wooden cutlery, and plates will go to sugarcane pulp or paper plates, which we’ve already got.
“The big thing for us will be styrofoam. The coffee and milkshake cups will have to go to cardboard, but the styrofoam dinner containers will be a challenge, especially come harvest time with so many takeaway meals,” he said.
“Sytrofoam has been the cheaper option, the alternatives are considerably dearer at the moment but the new rules will eventually bring the price down.”
It is likely that lined cardboard options, bamboo or even mushroom-based products, may eventually replace styrofoam dishes.
While single-use plastics are on the hit list, other types of food containers such as cake trays, chinese food containers, takeaway sandwich packs and slushie cups are made from PET, a different type of plastic that is not yet subject to the bans.
“A rule of thumb is that the opaque plastics are bad, the clear plastics are okay,” Mr Butler said. “I’ve heard that you can use what you have in stock but at some point they will start checking.”
“There will be some grey areas for a long time.”
Ms O’Farrell believes people will adapt as they have in other parts of the world, like her home country of Ireland where bans and recycling have been in place for many years.
“I do think we need to take more care of the environment and the bans are state-wide so there are going to be solutions,” she said.
“It will be like a new normal.”