New legislation in QLD and WA bans shopping bags with handles and a thickness under 35 microns made of plastic, biodegradable or degradable material. Legislation in SA, NT, TAS and Canberra exempts biodegradable including compostable bags from the ban if they meet the Australian Standard for compostability like BioBags do.
The inclusion of compostable bags was led by confusion around the lack of standardised labelling and regulation on degradable and biodegradable bags. Instead of including compostable bags in the ban due to lack of knowledge, we want to clear up the confusion, so we wrote this blog to explain the differences between degradable, biodegradable and compostable bags: Misleading degradable and biodegradable plastic bags
