At the national level, governments have made their expectations clear with the Environment Ministers Meeting listing eight priority plastic items to be phased out nationally by 2025, and the National Plastics Plan setting ambitious time frames for the phase-out of some items by 2022 to combat mounting plastic waste – Polystyrene foam (commonly used to packaging consumer goods) is one of them, and will be phased out in Australia by mid-2022.

There’s no single solution to plastic pollution. We need to do a better job at capturing plastic waste, and recycling it back into new high value goods. But we also need to reduce unnecessary plastic use – and that should include banning foam.

At Castaway, we have welcomed many aspects of the plan – which also includes beginning the phase-out of polystyrene food and beverage containers. Timelines have also been agreed across our supply chain since the targets were announced in 2018. We have a range of tools and resources to help businesses make the changes needed, and will continue to support local businesses to switch to alternative products whenever and wherever possible.

We embrace the Australian Packaging Covenant’s Sustainable Packaging Guidelines (SPG) and will formally adopt them when designing proprietary products for specific customers.

Most state governments in Australia have planned to implement a single-use plastic ban. This can get quite confusing at time.

So far, only Queensland and ACT have legislated bans on foam, while the City of Hobart’s bylaw banning some single-use plastics came into effect 1 July 2021. Other states and territories are set to follow.

Our team is well placed to help you navigate the ever-changing foodservice landscape. For more information, please get in touch with us.