England has officially banned the use of single-use straws, stirrers and cotton buds, making it illegal for businesses to sell or supply these items.
There is an exemption to allow hospitals, bars and restaurants to provide plastic straws to people with disabilities or medical conditions that require them.
Restaurants will no longer be allowed to supply single-use plastic straws. Picture: Pexels
The English government and environmentalists have welcomed the ban, and urge even further commitment to lessening their use on single-use plastics.
Sion Elis Williams, of Friends of the Earth, said there is a need for England to ‘challenge our throwaway culture by forcing a shift away from all single-use materials in favour of reusable alternatives’.
The BBC reports that an estimated 4.7 billion plastic straws, 316 million plastic stirrers and 1.8 billion plastic-stemmed cotton buds are used in England every year. These newly banned plastics are only a fraction of single-use plastics.
The US state of New Jersey is also serious about the growing waste crisis, and has recently passed a bill to ban plastic bags, straws, foam containers and paper bags from stores and restaurants. The bill will now head to the governor and will become law in 18 months after it is signed.
England joins a host of other countries that have instilled a ban on single-use plastic. Greenpeace reports that 34 out of 54 African countries have either passed a law banning plastics and implemented it or have passed a law with the intention of implementation.
Kenya leads the way with the strictest ban on single-use plastic in the world, reports Greenpeace. Companies can be fined upwards of $40 000 for importing, manufacturing or selling single-use plastic bags. Individuals caught using single-use plastic face a $500 fine.
In South Africa, many stores have adopted a ‘no plastic shopping bags’ policy. The country has had a plastic bag levy since June 2004, charging for plastic bags at grocery stores in an attempt to reduce litter and encourage reusing bags.
The City of Cape Town was the first municipality to sign the South African Plastic Pact set up by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to bring role players like businesses, governments and NGOs together and to work toward achieving an answer to plastic waste and pollution issues across the country.
The pact aims to change the way plastic products and packaging are designed, used and reused. This will essentially assist in preventing plastics from entering the environment.
Also read: Cape Town to phase out single-use plastics
Most plastic materials, while cheap and easily accessible, escape into the land and marine environment. Plastic threatens many animals who try to eat these materials and choke or get entangled.
Plastics are increasingly considered as one of the most problematic waste streams that are occupying landfill sites, illegal dumps, rivers and ultimately, oceans with dire consequences for aquatic life.
Also read: How plastic pollution endangers wildlife
Also read: The reality of plastic waste in the ocean
