Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, today announced the ban saying he would look to move “as quickly as we can” on the issue.
“With this move by Premier Andrews we now have NSW left as the odd state out in their failure to act on plastic bag pollution,” Greenpeace Senior Media Campaigner, Simon Black, said.
“NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, is now lagging behind every other state in Australia and even behind the major supermarket chains who have also taken action to ban the bag.”
In September Queensland and Western Australia joined South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT in implementing bans on single-use plastic bags.
Premier Berejiklian in July said there was no need for NSW to ban single-use plastic bags as major supermarket chains had already done so.
But analysis done by Greenpeace Australian Pacific showed a failure to ban single use plastics means 1.1 billion bags would continue to be discarded each year in NSW alone.
“More than 1 billion bags in NSW will not be covered by the voluntary action by supermarkets. That’s billions of bags that Berejiklian is letting end up in our waterways and landfill,” Black said.
“Letting supermarkets lead the state on environmental issues would be weak even if it were effective, given that it will still not solve the problem the Premier’s inaction is disgraceful.
“The EPA’s director of waste management, Steve Beaman, was caught on tape talking about a ‘ban on bans’ in NSW [2] and if that’s the case it’s time to end that foolishness immediately.”
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
[2] http://ab.co/2gMAGNn
For interviews contact:
Simon Black
Greenpeace Senior Media Campaigner
0418 219 086 / simon.black@greenpeace.org