Plastic bag ban to be implemented February 18

The near total plastic bag ban comes into effect on February 18 where they will no longer even be sold, with a few minor exceptions.

The ban covers thin plastic carrier bags meant to transport the items purchased at businesses, the specification being less than 50μm thick. That includes even the bags labelled as biodegradable.

The ban covers most businesses such as pharmacies, kiosks, supermarkets and delivery orders.

The only exceptions are for plastic bags used for hygiene purposes, such as to cover meat or fish products and even then only to act as a barrier from other products.

As the Cyprus Mail reported in September, a wide array of single use plastic items were banned back in October – such as plastic knives, plates and cups.

The law, necessary to harmonise Cyprus with the EU directive on reducing the impact of plastic products on the environment was passed earlier this year, although the EU directive should have been transposed into law by July 2021.

MPs had previously narrowly approved an amendment for a three-month extension from the initial extension on the implementation date of April 30 until September 30 to allow the sale of single-use plastics and exhaust the stocks, provided their order was placed before July 3, 2021, when all EU member states should have adopted the directive into law.

This was an additional extension to a previous amendment to the bill by the House environment committee which extended the availability of the stock of single-use plastic products to April 30, provided the order was placed on the market before July 3, 2021.