{"id":423938,"date":"2020-08-07T15:41:06","date_gmt":"2020-08-07T13:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=423938"},"modified":"2020-08-07T15:41:06","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T13:41:06","slug":"south-africas-plan-to-phase-out-harmful-plastic-shopping-bags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/423938\/south-africas-plan-to-phase-out-harmful-plastic-shopping-bags\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa&#8217;s plan to phase out harmful plastic shopping bags"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Environment minister Barbara Creecy has gazetted draft amendments to the National Environmental Management Act in a move to phase out certain types of plastic bags.<\/p>\n<p>The directive, which was published on 7 August, states that plastic carrier bags and plastic flat bags must be made from a minimum of 50% &#8216;post-consumer recyclate&#8217; from 01 January 2023 and must, from 1 January 2027, be made from 100% post-consumer recyclate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Post-consumer recyclate&#8217; is defined by the directive as material generated by households or by commercial, industrial and institutional facilities in their role as end-users of the product which can no longer be used for its intended purpose.<\/p>\n<p>The directive also outlines the following &#8216;phase-out&#8217; schedule:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The plastic carrier bags and plastic flat bags must be made from a minimum of 50% post-consumer recyclate by 1 January 2023;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The plastic carrier bags and plastic flat bags must be made from a minimum of 75% post-consumer recyclate by 1 January 2025;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The plastic camer bags and plastic flat bags must be made from a minimum of 100% post-consumer recyclate by 1 January 2027.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Notably, the directive states that anyone found to be contravening these new changes shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding R5 million or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 5 years.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of a second or subsequent conviction to a fine not exceeding R10 million or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 10 years, and in both instances to both such fine and such imprisonment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Malls phase-out plastic bags<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A number of South Africa\u2019s biggest shopping malls said that they will be\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/316530\/some-of-south-africas-biggest-shopping-malls-are-banning-plastic-bags\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">adopting<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>a \u2018no plastic shopping bags\u2019 policy across its malls as of 1 January 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Property developer Liberty Two Degrees (L2D) said that it will has also initiated the introduction of recycling drop-off booths across a number of its properties.<\/p>\n<p>A plastic bag levy was introduced in June 2004, at a rate of 3 cents a bag on some types of plastic shopping bags, with the aim of reducing litter and encouraging plastic bag reuse.<\/p>\n<p>The levy was increased to 4 cents a bag from 1 April 2009 and further increased to 6 cents a bag from 1 April 2013 and to 8 cents a bag from 1 April 2016. From 1 April 2018 it was increased again to 12 cents a bag.<\/p>\n<p>According to the 2018\/19 tax statistics published by\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sars.gov.za\/AllDocs\/Documents\/Tax%20Stats\/Tax%20Stats%202019\/Tax%20Stats%202019%20Full%20doc.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SARS<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>at the end of the year, revenue brought in by the sale of plastic bags via the plastic bags levy increased by R59 million to R300 million for the year.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Plastic-bags.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-admin\/post.php?post=423938&amp;action=edit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Government to discuss updated lockdown recommendations for South Africa: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Environment minister Barbara Creecy has gazetted draft amendments to the National Environmental Management Act in a move to phase out certain types of plastic bags.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":227049,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-423938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423938"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423956,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423938\/revisions\/423956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}