The Maldives Customs Service has destroyed single-use plastics which have been banned from being imported into the country.
The authority revealed that the materials destroyed were held by the Kulhudhuffushi Customs and were included in the list in the import ban on single-use plastics into the Maldives, decreed by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.
The materials were destroyed in the northern city, on November 24.
They included 50 cartons of plastic plates, 10 cartons of plastic spoons, 10 cartons of plastic forks as well as 10 cartons of plastic knives.
The items were destroyed in accordance with Section 422 of the General Rules of Customs, which instructs the process for the authority in connection with items in the authority’s custody that haven’t been claimed, as well as illegal items being imported into the Maldives.
The regulations of the authority decree that items held in customs’ custody may be destroyed under the set procedure for it, for several different reasons.
President Solih on June 1, decreed changes to the import ban on several single-use plastics into the Maldives, under Section 7 of the Import-Export Act under which he has the power to prohibit the import of single-use plastic items by deadlines as part of a gradual phase-out efforts.
Items banned for import into the Maldives from June 1 are
- Plastic drinking straws
- Imported sweet areca nuts wrapped in plastic
- Single-use plastic-based plates, cutleries and stirrers
- Styrofoam lunch boxes
- Plastic shopping bags below 30x30cm including oxo-degradable and synthetic polymer-based biodegradable plastics
- Single-use plastic cups below 250ml
- Cotton buds with plastic stems
- Shampoo, soap, conditioner and lotion in plastic bottles that are 50ml and below
- All imported beverages in PET bottles below 500ml (water, carbonated and non-carbonated drinks)
Further, the government will impose a ban on plastic shopping bags below 50-micron thickness including oxo-degradable and synthetic polymer-based biodegradable plastics as well as shampoo and soap bottles in plastic packaging from 50ml to 200ml starting from 1 December 2022. Import of all imported water that is one liter and below packet in PET packaging will be banned from 1 December 2023.
President Solih had declared a list of single-use plastics to be banned for import into Maldives earlier, that came into effect on June 1.
The president approved, during November 2020, the plan to phase out single-use plastics in the Maldives by the year 2023. In December last year the People’s Majlis passed the 18th amendment to the Export-Import Act of the Maldives following which the president ratified the legislation the same month.
The amendment gave the President authority to compile and publish a list of goods prohibited to be imported to Maldives, the President may also add and remove goods from the list. Under the amendment, the government was mandated to compile and publicize the list of banned single-use plastics, including the date from which the changes are to come into effect, before 1 January 2021.
The People’s Majlis in mid-2019 passed a resolution to ban single-use plastics in Maldives from 2025 onward, after students from a number of schools collectively submitted a proposal that details the dangers of single-use plastic.
In December 2018, the President launched a campaign to eliminate single-use plastic. The government’s vision to phase out single-use plastics from the Maldives by the year 2023, was initially announced during Solih’s maiden trip to New York to attend the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, held in 2019.
It was introduced at the session as a government pledge, reiterated in the incumbent government’s 2019-2023 Strategic Action Plan (SAP) which envisages Maldives' waters to be cleared of plastic pollution by the year 2023.
Minimizing the use of single-use plastics was also one of Solih’s first 100-day-pledges. Since the Solih administration came into power, several government institutions alongside restaurants and cafés have stopped using plastic.
