Taiwan to eliminate single-use plastic cups at drink shops Sunday

Taipei, Aug. 31 (CNA) Drink shops across Taiwan will stop providing customers with single-use plastic cups starting Sunday, Sept. 1, after offshore Kinmen County becomes the last municipality in the country to follow the Ministry of Environment's (MOENV) 2022 policy.

Saturday is the final day on which the single-use plastic cups are still allowed, as Kinmen County will initiate MOENV's "Parties Subject to and Means for Single-use Takeaway Beverage Cups Restrictions" on Sunday, becoming the last of Taiwan's 22 cities and counties to ban single-use plastic cups.

Starting Sunday, drink shops across the nation will be allowed to offer only single-use cups made of other materials, such as paper.

According to a press release from the ministry issued July 29, Taipei became the first municipality in Taiwan to ban drinks shops from providing single-use plastic cups in December 2022.

Similar bans took effect all around Taiwan between 2023 and 2024, with Hualien, Taitung, Miaoli and Penghu being the latest to adopt the policy in July, before Kinmen follows suit on Sunday.

MOENV said statistics from 2020 revealed that Taiwan used approximately 2.2 billion single-use plastic cups that year.

The new policy could lead to 790 million fewer disposable plastic cups being used nationwide each year, MOENV said.