Plastic bag import ban delayed to Jan 2024, consumption ban to June 2024

An import ban on plastic bags that are thinner than 50 microns has been delayed to June 1, 2024 under a presidential decree issued on Thursday.

Maldives banned the import, production and sale of 13 environmentally harmful single-use plastics on December 1. However, the decision was reviewed and two items were amended in the decree:

The environment ministry said that testing of several plastic bags sampled during the import process, as well as other samples, recorded almost all of them as thinner than 50 microns. The date of the ban on import and manufacture has been pushed back to January 1, 2024 and the use of these items will now be banned from June 1, 2024, the ministry said on Thursday.

While the import of Supari packed in plastic packets is banned, it has been noticed that Supari packed in different plastic packaging like bottles are now being imported into Maldives, the ministry said.

From January 2024, the import of other plastic-packaged Supari will also be banned, with the use of such Supari banned from June 2024. 

With the enactment of the Waste Management Act, a tax on plastic bags has been in place since April. According to the state tax authority, MIRA, the government received MVR 1.7 million in plastic bag fees in the first month of the bag tax.