France postpones ban on plastic cups for four years
Kyiv • UNN
France has postponed its ban on single-use plastic cups for four years, until 2030, due to difficulties in finding alternatives. The Ministry of Ecological Transition announced that a new review of progress would take place in 2028.
The French government on Tuesday postponed a ban on single-use plastic cups for four years — until 2030 — due to difficulties in finding alternatives. This was reported by AFP, writes UNN.
Details
The ban was supposed to come into force on January 1, but the Ministry of Ecological Transition stated that the results of a recent review of the "technical feasibility of eliminating plastic from cups" justify the postponement.
In an official decree, the ministry announced that a new review of "progress in replacing single-use plastic cups" will be conducted in 2028. It also states that the ban will now come into force on January 1, 2030, after which companies will be given 12 months to dispose of existing stocks.
Over the past decade, France has gradually introduced bans on single-use plastic products amid increasing warnings from environmental activists about their impact on rivers and oceans.
A 2020 law set a deadline of 2040 for the complete elimination of all single-use plastic products. In 2022, a ban was introduced on plastic bags for packaging less than 1.5 kilograms of 30 types of fruits and vegetables, which significantly changed the habits of supermarket shoppers.
The postponement of the ban is "another step backward in the fight against plastic pollution under pressure from lobbying groups
According to her, "the argument about technical feasibility is shaky," because solutions exist but have not been widely implemented due to a lack of investment and an insufficient regulatory framework.
Environmental activists note that the abandonment of single-use plastic is happening too slowly.
In early 2024, the organizations Zero Waste France, Surfrider Foundation Europe, Les Amis de la Terre, France Nature Environnement, and No Plastic in my Sea, in their report, assessed the implementation of the 2020 law as unsatisfactory.
They pointed to measures that were never implemented, as well as government decrees that limited the effectiveness of the law.
Meanwhile, the government's consumer protection agency DGCCRF reported in a report released last year that almost a fifth of the approximately 100 companies inspected in 2023 were violating rules regarding the production or use of single-use plastic products.
Agency investigators said some companies sold products as "plastic-free" when they actually contained plastic, and others changed product names in an attempt to circumvent the ban.