In 2018 the government of the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu became one of the first in the world to ban the sale of plastic bags and straws. Two years later, in 2020, it outlawed a number of other single-use plastic items, including plates and cutlery, along with polystyrene trays and cups. The measures were taken both to limit the amount of waste generated on Vanuatu and to reduce the amount of plastic pollution found collecting in the islands' lagoons and on their beaches. Six years on, what has been their impact?
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21st June 2024

Pacific island nations like Vanuatu are worse affected by plastic pollution than anywhere else. Many rely on imported goods—and receive tonnes of plastic packaging every day as a result. The islands lack recycling or waste management facilities on their narrow strips of land, so rubbish is either burned or left to accumulate in landfill sites. Typically, the amount of waste generated by each person a day on Pacific islands is around 40% higher than the global average.

At the same time, currents in the Pacific Ocean drag in vast amounts of plastic waste dumped at sea all over the world. Much of this eventually washes up on the shores of Pacific Islands.
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Vanuatu's new laws have proved effective in dealing with the first of these challenges. Despite some exceptions to the ban—plastic bags to wrap fish or meat at the point of sale and plastic bottles are still permitted—the changes have been noticeable. The plastic items which are now banned once made up 35% of Vanuatu’s waste. In 2024, that figure is less than 2%. Plastic shopping bags (the use of which dropped by 90% in the two years after the ban was introduced in 2018) are hardly ever seen. Most shoppers use reusable bags at their local market or grocery. Takeaway food is more often served wrapped in banana leaves than in polystyrene boxes.

Leaves from the palm-like Pandanus tree are now used to make woven bags instead of plastic bags at markets—a development that has seen new industries making the bags thrive on Vanuatu. But supply is sometimes threatened by storms and cyclones which destroy the leaves. The Vanuatu government plans to expand the plastic ban to include disposable nappies, and to introduce a plastic bottle deposit scheme to help with the recycling programme.
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