Plastic Bags - COAG Standing Council on Environment and Water

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7.3. Litter focused options............................................................................................................... 46
7.3.1 General litter abatement to manage plastic bag litter ........................................................ 46
Option A: Enforcement................................................................................................................ 47
Option B: Behaviour Change....................................................................................................... 48
Option C: Litter Clean Up........................................................................................................... 50
Option D: Litter infrastructure ................................................................................................... 50
Option E: Advance disposal fee (ACG scenario 7) ...................................................................... 51
7.4. <strong>Plastic</strong> Bag Consumption Focused Options .......................................................................... 54
Option F: Baseline scenario – no further government action (ACG scenario 2)......................... 54
Option G: Extension of the voluntary code of practice for managing plastic bags (ACG
scenario 3) .......................................................................................................................... 56
Option H: Industry agreement to impose an escalating charge, supported by complementary
regulatory measure (ACG scenario 4) ............................................................................... 59
Option I: Industry agreement to phase out, followed by government regulation to restrict the
supply of plastic bags (ACG scenario 5) ............................................................................ 62
Option J: Retailers obliged to impose a minimum charge by regulation (ACG scenario 8) ........ 66
Option K: Impose a government levy on lightweight single-use plastic bags (ACG scenario 9) 68
Option L: Elimination of plastic bags from 2009 (ACG scenario 1) ........................................... 72
Option M: A stand-alone ban on lightweight single-use plastic carry bags (ACG scenario 6) .. 76
Option N: The ANRA proposal (ACG supplementary scenarios 1a and 1b).............................. 77
Option O: The ANRA proposal, with added targets for reduction (ACG supplementary
scenarios 2a and 2b)........................................................................................................... 80
8. CONSULTATION ............................................................................................................................. 83
8.1. Who are the main affected parties? ........................................................................................ 83
8.1.1 <strong>Plastic</strong> bag manufacturers.................................................................................................. 83
8.1.2 Retailers ............................................................................................................................. 84
8.1.3 Consumers ......................................................................................................................... 84
8.1.4 Government ....................................................................................................................... 85
8.1.5 Environment groups .......................................................................................................... 85
9. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDED OPTIONS................................................................. 86
9.1. Brief summary of each option ................................................................................................. 86
9.2. Preferred options....................................................................................................................... 86
10. IMPLEMENTATION ........................................................................................................................ 88
10.1. Implementing a mandatory charge ........................................................................................ 88
10.2. Implementing a Ban.................................................................................................................. 89
11. BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................... 90
Consultation Regulatory Impact Statement: Investigation of options to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags January 2007 2