Living with less plastic in New Zealand

Not every plastic-reduction plan runs on schedule, and New Zealand's own trajectory is a clear example. The final and most ambitious phase of its three-part single-use plastics strategy - eliminating polystyrene and PVC food and beverage packaging - has been postponed indefinitely by the country's current coalition government, as part …

In July 2019, New Zealand banned single-use plastic shopping bags up to 70 microns thick - a threshold specifically chosen to capture the thin, flimsy checkout bags that dominated retail at the time, rather than sturdier reusable plastic bags that some stores continued to sell. The government's own estimates put …