President Dr Mohamed Muizzu has amended the presidential decree identifying environmentally harmful single-use plastics, postponing the ban on plastic water bottles sized between 500ml and 1 litre.
The ban on packaging, producing, and importing bottles in this size range, previously scheduled for 1 December 2025, has been pushed to 1 December 2027. Likewise, the ban on selling these bottles has been delayed from 1 March 2026 to 1 June 2028.
The original decree issued on 1 December 2023 outlines 14 single-use plastic (SUP) items considered detrimental to the environment, setting dates for when their import, manufacture, and sale will be prohibited. These items include plastic straws, plates, cutlery, stirrers, Styrofoam lunch boxes, certain plastic shopping bags, sweet areca nut packaging, small plastic bottles for toiletries, and bottled water below 500ml.
Water packaged in plastic bottles below 1 litre, including the 500ml and 1-litre category now postponed, will be the last items to be phased out under the list. The list was first introduced during the previous MDP administration.