Italy to ban plastic cups and plates from 2020

Italy plans to ban the use of plastic cups, cutlery, plates and other disposable items from January 2020, Environment Minister Sergio Costa said in a Friday interview.

The ban - taking a cue from European Commission proposals that have yet to be approved - would also apply to other objects such as straws, balloon sticks and drink stirrers.

"My objective is to clean up marine ecosystems by as much as possible," Costa told Italian daily La Repubblica, adding that "to do this we should first of all reduce the impact of some single-use plastic products."

In May, when it called for an EU-wide ban on disposable plastic objects, the European Commission said more than 80 per cent of marine litter is plastic.

Also from 2020, Costa said, fishing boats would no longer be allowed to throw marine litter they pick up while fishing back into the sea, and cosmetics containing microplastics would also be banned.

The measures would be introduced in a law that is nearly ready, the minister said. It has yet to be approved by the cabinet and voted on in parliament.

Microplastics are small plastic pieces less than five millimetres long which pollute the sea as they cannot be filtered by water treatment systems. They are seen as a major threat to marine life.

In the cosmetics industry, microbeads - tiny pieces of polyethylene plastic - are added to beauty creams and toothpaste for scrubbing purposes.