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Single-use takeaway packaging is among plastic items banned from sale or manufacture from today.
The list of outlawed plastics includes single-use drink stirrers, plastic cotton buds, most plastic meat trays, polystyrene takeaway packaging for food and beverages, foam takeaway containers or some instant noodle cups, and plastics with additives which make them fragment into micro-plastics.
“On average, every year each New Zealander sends about 750kgs of waste to landfill. Some products can’t be recycled and are unnecessary,” Environment Minister David Parker said on Friday.
"These are the first group of plastic products to be banned since the ban on single-use plastic bags in 2019. That has meant more than one billion fewer plastic bags have ended up in landfills or the ocean."