NSW packaging disposal labels: the EPA can now set the spec by website order

The law is the Environmental Legislation Amendment (Plastic Reduction and Container Recycling) Act 2026, Act No 52 of 2026. Parliament’s record shows it passed the Legislative Council on 22 October and was assented on 28 October. The part a printer should read is four lines long, in Schedule 4, amending section 8 of the Plastic Reduction and Circular Economy Act 2021.

The clause: detail by order, publications by reference

Section 8 already let the regulations set design standards for an item, and it already said a standard may contain requirements for the way in which an item must be packaged or labelled, plus independent testing to check compliance and to check whether a representation made about an item is accurate. What is new, in the version in force from 28 October 2026, is subsections (2A) to (2C):

• A design standard in relation to labelling or recyclability (a relevant standard) may authorise the EPA to decide matters necessary or convenient to give effect to the standard.
• The decision of the EPA must be made by order published on a website of the EPA.
• The relevant standard or order may apply, adopt or incorporate a publication as in force for the time being or from time to time.

Read together, a regulation can set the frame (this item must carry disposal labelling) and leave the artwork-level detail (which words, which symbol, what size, where) to the EPA, decided by an order on its website. And either one can point at a document maintained by somebody else and take whatever that document says next year, not just what it says today.

What the EPA says is coming, and when

The EPA’s Plastics Plan 2.0 page, updated 28 October 2026, sets out the staging. The items that land on a print or converting job are these:

• 2028: regulations for proper disposal labelling on single-use plastic cups, food containers, and plastic bags, and regulations requiring single-use plastic cups, food containers and lids to be recyclable.
• 2028: phase-out of plastic tags used to seal bread, bakery and dry pantry bags, with fresh-produce bags exempt to September 2029.
• 2030: regulations phasing out fruit and vegetable stickers, and regulations requiring single-serve plastic condiment packages to be recyclable and to carry disposal labelling.

The plan itself, published by the EPA in November 2025, carries the detail the summary page leaves out. The sticker phase-out is of non-compostable stickers: Stickers and their adhesives that meet certain requirements in line with Australian standards for compostability will continue to be allowed. A separate action requires suppliers of produce stickers, and of barrier bags commonly used as food-waste caddy liners, to verify any compostable or biodegradable claim against Australian standards for compostability, after a 24-month transition. For a label printer that is two jobs, not one: the face stock and the adhesive both have to qualify, and the claim on the box has to be backed by a test.

On the disposal labels, the plan says the government will work with businesses before regulations are made to define labelling specifications and requirements, and that it will consider extending the labelling requirements to non-plastic single-use cups and food containers. That second sentence is the one paperboard cup and carton converters should note: the 2028 rule as listed covers plastic items, but the plan leaves the door open to fibre.

The plan said the labelling regulations would be made in 2026, with a 24-month transition. On 7 November 2026 the EPA’s page says only that it will consult further on the details of new requirements proposed to be set out in regulations, including any exemptions, during the regulation making process. We found no draft regulation on it.

What the Act itself does to cups

The new Part 4A is aimed at takeaway businesses rather than their suppliers. From 1 January 2028, a takeaway business must serve a drink in a clean reusable cup the customer brings, rather than a single-use plastic cup, unless the person who refused the cup had reason to believe it might make the drink unsafe; the maximum penalty is 20 penalty units for an individual and 100 otherwise, which the Minister, Penny Sharpe, put at $2,200 and $11,000 in her second reading speech. A second section requiring takeaway businesses to offer a cup from a reuse scheme carries a start date of 1 December 2030 in the Act. The EPA’s timeline as updated on 28 October no longer lists that offer requirement, which its November 2025 plan did.

One more provision touches print directly. New section 51A makes it an offence to give false or misleading information about a reuse-scheme cup, and defines giving to include to print or include in or on a label or packaging material. It covers reuse-scheme cups only.

Our view, labelled as such

The order power is sensible drafting. Label specifications change, and remaking a regulation every time a symbol is revised is slow. But it moves where a printer has to look. A regulation is made in the Gazette and sits on the legislation website with a version history. An EPA order sits on a website page, and a standard that adopts a publication as in force for the time being or from time to time can change when that publication changes, without anything happening in Parliament or the Gazette.

The Act does not name any publication. The obvious candidates already exist: the federal government’s kerbside recyclability grading framework, and the Australian standards for compostability the plan refers to. That is our inference, not anything the EPA has said. If NSW does adopt an outside document by reference, the version on the day a job is printed is the one that counts, and a brand owner’s artwork approved months earlier may not match it. The practical step for a converter is to ask clients early which NSW items they supply, and to watch the EPA’s plastics pages as well as the Gazette. We will report the draft labelling regulation, and any EPA order under the new section, when either is published.

Sources

How we put this together. AI systems researched and wrote it under our standing editorial rules, taking its facts from the primary sources below. How The Print Register works.

1. NSW Legislation, Plastic Reduction and Circular Economy Act 2021 No 31 (current version for 28 October 2026 to date, read 7 November 2026): section 8, including new subsections (2A) to (2C) and the existing power to set packaging and labelling requirements.
2. Parliament of NSW, Environmental Legislation Amendment (Plastic Reduction and Container Recycling) Bill 2026, bill details (read 7 November 2026): assented 28 October 2026, Act No 52 of 2026, Government Gazette No 449 of 30 October 2026.
3. Parliament of NSW, Bill as passed by both Houses (PDF, 32 pages, read 7 November 2026): Schedule 4, including Part 4A sections 34B and 34C, the transitional start dates of 1 January 2028 and 1 December 2030, and section 51A.
4. Parliament of NSW, Hansard, Legislative Council second reading speech (20 October 2026, read 7 November 2026): the Minister’s statement of the cup penalties in dollars and the bill’s purposes.
5. NSW Environment Protection Authority, Plastics Plan 2.0 (updated 28 October 2026, read 7 November 2026): passage on 22 October, the 2026 to 2030 implementation timeline, and the consultation statement.
6. NSW Environment Protection Authority, NSW Plastics Plan 2.0 (PDF, 28 pages, November 2025, read 7 November 2026): the non-compostable sticker phase-out and compostable exemption, the sticker and barrier-bag verification action, the labelling action and its 24-month transition, and the non-plastic cup and container sentence.

Print for food service in NSW, or read this Act differently? Tell us and we will check it against the legislation and log the outcome here.