Plastics bans and packaged food and drinks

We recognise the significant capital investment required to review and adjust supply chains to make the switch to more sustainable and compliant stock. To allow enough time for industry to make these changes, a transition period was written into the Plastic Reduction and Circular Economy Act (the Act). This transition period ends on 1 January 2025.

Some other examples of integrated packaged plastic items include: 

• plastic straws included within the packaging of at-home ‘bubble tea’ making kits 
• plastic straws that contain flavouring beads or powder to be added to milk or other drinks
• plastic spatulas included within the packaging of  ‘dip’ snacks.

No. The 1 January 2025 is a hard deadline that is written into the Plastic Reduction and Circular Economy Act 2021 (the Act). This end of transition period comes over two years after the bans on single use plastic items came into force on 1 November 2022, and over three years after the Act was passed in Parliament in November 2021.

We hope that by sending out communications now to businesses that they are reminded to make the necessary preparations to transition to compliant stock, and work with their retail partners to run down stock of affected products before 1 January 2025.

No. Unless allowed under another exemption you cannot continue to supply banned items after 1 January 2025.

In general, the circumstances in which the EPA will consider it necessary or appropriate to grant an exemption will be limited.

Organisations or individuals ‘carrying on a business’ may submit an enquiry form to the EPA regarding applying for an exemption. Please note that the form itself is not an exemption application and submitting the form does not mean you have been or will be granted an exemption. The form is a guide that will assist you to prepare for the types of questions that you may need to answer in further detail, after the EPA has considered your enquiry.

To read more about the process for enquiring about exemptions, go to our plastics ban exemptions guidance.

We have listed some suggestions to compliant alternatives on our alternatives to banned single-use items webpage. We also suggest the below alternatives to commonplace integrated packaged banned items:

• Plastic straw included with a beverage – swap included plastic straws for paper ones instead. Also consider whether the packaging of a beverage could be redesigned to not include a straw at all, for example, changing a carton design to a bottled design where the beverage is enclosed with a lid.
• Plastic cutlery included with meal – swap for bamboo or wooden cutlery. Also consider if the meal could do without included cutlery if your customer is likely to take the meal home and use available reusable cutlery.

View information on complying with the plastics bans.

To report the supply of a prohibited plastic item:

• complete an online form
• phone the Environment Line on 131 555
• or email [email protected].

No. The ban taking place from 1 January 2025 does not include the protective plastic sleeve encasing of a straw. For example, a compliant (e.g. paper) straw enclosed in a plastic sleeve that is attached to a beverage box will be acceptable.  

However, the EPA encourages industry to seek alternatives to plastic sleeve encasings, as we cannot say for certain that they will not be banned in future. 

Please note that the ban update taking place from 1 January 2025 only applies to food and drink packaging that includes already banned single-use plastic items. That is, not all food and drink packaging made of plastic is banned. 

Examples of products that will not​ be affected by the ban update are:

• a drink product that is packaged with a plastic screw-on lid
• plastic shrink wrapping around food and beverage products
• expanded polystyrene food trays*, if they are not intended to serve ready-to-consume food or drinks
• a microwaveable meal that is packaged in a plastic tray* or plastic container.

*Regarding trays - refer to our factsheet to identify banned plastic items (PDF 600KB) to assist you in determining whether your product would be considered a plate (which would be banned) or a tray.

A scoop provided within the packaging of products such as baby formula is unlikely to be considered plastic single-use cutlery if the scoop:

• is not used to consume food, and
• is designed, intended or ordinarily used more than once for a particular purpose (such as measuring a specific amount of product).

Scoops that meet all of the above criteria are unlikely to be captured by the current bans in the Act or be affected by the upcoming changes to banned items integrated into packaged food or beverages on 1 January 2025. 

The information on this page is only relevant to the state of NSW.

Bans affecting packaged food and drinks may vary across the states and territories. 

The National Retail Association (NRA) has an informative table that lists Australian single-use plastic bans by state among other important industry information.

For information regarding another state, territory, or country, please refer to the links at the bottom of the NRA table to the individual states and territories legislation or contact your relevant Environment Protection Authority.  

The NSW Government is currently undertaking a review of further problematic and unnecessary plastic items. Public consultation on the paper, entitled NSW Plastics: Next Steps, closed on 4 February 2024. Decisions regarding future banned items are pending and further consultation with the public, industry and other stakeholders will occur.  Updates will be available on the Plastics Paper Have Your Say webpage.

In addition to the above, plastic packaged products may be impacted by national packaging  reforms, led by the Commonwealth Government, due to be implemented the end of 2025. These reforms will include new mandatory packaging design standards and targets, which are intended to ensure that all packaging available in Australia is designed to be recovered, reused, recycled and reprocessed safely in line with circular economy principles. More information on reforming packaging regulation is available on the DCCEEW website.

You may also have obligations to manage the impact of packaging in which your products are sold or distributed. Please visit the packaging stewardship page for more information on this.