Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said his two daughters were all praise for his recent announcement that Malta will ban single-use plastics in the coming years.

“My children have never praised me for the Budget before but they followed it on Monday, and on Tuesday morning told me well done for one thing, that we’re going be banning single-use plastics,” Muscat told a political rally in Marsaxlokk this morning. “They’re 12 years old and they believe, like many do, that we’re throwing away plastic for nothing.”

Malta will ban the importation of single-use plastic products, such as plastic bags, straws, cutlery and plates as of 2021 and ban their sale and distribution a year later. This follows the EU Council approving a similar ban earlier this year in an effort to clamp down on plastic pollution.

Supermarkets will also be incentivised to set up ‘green corners’ where people will be able to place food in containers they would brought from home.

“The future ironically looks a lot like the past,” Muscat said, recounting how his grandmother used to send him out with glass bottles to buy oil.

“I joke with my European friends that before we joined the EU, Malta didn’t have any plastic bottles because everything was in glass. When we joined, we shifted to plastic bottles and now we’re being made to shift again.”

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