Petition for plastic bag levy thrown out

Local councils support it, retailers support it and the Green Party will not stop talking about it.

Yet a plastic bag levy does not appear to be on the National Government’s radar, after the Ministry for the Environment advised against introducing the scheme.

The advice comes after a petition with 16,265 signatures, calling on the Government to look at ways it can phase out single-use plastic bags, was delivered to parliament in August 2015 by Green Party MP Denise Roche.

Local Government NZ, which is made up of a collection of councils, threw its weight behind a levy last year.

Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith did not respond to requests for an interview.

He has previously said a ban or a compulsory levy cannot be justified when plastic shopping bags only make up 1.5 per cent of litter items in nationwide litter surveys.

Instead, Smith has said he supports a $1.2 million soft-plastics recycling pilot project, launched in November 2015.

The aim is to give 70 per cent of Kiwis a drop-off facility for softplastic waste within 20km of home within three years.

Smith said this was ‘‘a more sensible approach than a ban or a compulsory levy on just plastic shopping bags, which make up only two per cent of waste going to landfill and only 10 per cent of plastic waste’’.

Roche, the Green Party’s waste spokeswoman, said she was ‘‘hugely irritated’’ by the Government’s approach.

She said it was focused on investing in soft-plastics recycling and educating consumers. These schemes ‘‘only go so far’’. ‘‘The problem with recycling is it’s really expensive and it’s what you do when you fail to avoid using plastic bags, so the best thing to do is to stop using them,’’ Roche said.

‘‘1.6 billion plastic bags are used

"The Ministry’s argument was that New Zealand [doesn’t] contribute a lot to marine waste, so why should we do anything." Denise Roche, Green Party MP

in New Zealand every year, and many of them end up in our oceans.’’

Roche campaigned heavily for a phase-out scheme last year, with support from conservation advocacy group Our Seas Our Future.

According to a study published in the journal Science, 83 per cent of the world’s plastic waste in the ocean originates from 20 countries. New Zealand is not one of them.

‘‘The ministry’s argument was that New Zealand is a small country and we don’t contribute a lot to marine waste, so why should we do anything.’’

Last year, the British Government imposed a 5-pence (NZ9c) levy on plastic bags, with money collected going to charities.

The move has led to an 85 per cent reduction in plastic bag use and raised £29m (NZ$52.3m) for charity in six months, Roche said.

Ireland enacted a plastic bag levy decades ago.

In October this year, New York City will introduce a US10c bag levy.