news, local-news, plastic free july, plastic free launceston, hobart council bans takeaway containers

Tasmania could be home to the first city in the country to ban plastic takeaway containers. The City of Hobart council on Monday voted to set in motion legislation that would see single-use plastic containers and cutlery phased out by the city’s food retailers. They would be replaced by compostable versions of themselves by 2020. Greens Alderman Bill Harvey put forward the move to amend the council’s environmental health by-laws. “There's still a way to go before the council by-law is created, but it's now in the pipeline,” Alderman Harvey wrote on his Facebook page after the vote was passed. Plastic Free Launceston, which just finished its first Plastic Free July month, applauded the move by the council, and mused if the movement could go further. “Lets [sic] see if Tassie can be the first to have this ban statewide,” the group wrote on social media.

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