Single Use Plastic Ban

Single Use Plastic Ban Policy

The importation of non-biodegradable consumer goods is becoming a mounting burden for the economy, human health and the environment of the Cook Islands.  This burden is evidenced by the growing amount of non-biodegradable waste increasing at waste facilities, in dumps, littering roadsides and streams, being burnt and being washed into the ocean where it threatens oceanic life.  

As part of progressing steps to preventing waste accumulation, Infrastructure Cook Islands (ICI) as focal point for the Cook Islands Solid Waste Management Committee submitted a policy proposing to ban the importation of a suite of single use plastic products to Cabinet.  Cabinet approved the Policy on the 9th of April 2019.  Initially, the policy was only for single use polystyrene and was later expanded to other products.

Items included in this policy include single-use plastic products are:

-        Lightweight plastic bags including shopping bags
-        Plastic straws and cocktail stirrers
-        Plastic cutlery
-        Plastic containers with no PET number or with numbers 3, 4, 5, and 7, including            plastic plates and seal-able food containers
-        Plastic and polystyrene cups, including plastic-lined coffee cups
-        Polystyrene containers and meat trays
-        Single-serve butter and spreads
-        Products containing microbeads

The list of banned products will form a Schedule in the Solid and Hazardous Waste Bill. 

Download the policy to the right of the screen.