Fijians will soon start being fined five times more for littering after an amendment to the country’s litter laws.<\/p>\n
The Fijian government says the stronger penalties and enforcement measures against littering will come into effect in two weeks.<\/p>\n
Under the old law, everyday littering fines were fixed at FJ$40 (NZ$30). But the new law will see the fines increase to FJ$200 (NZ$150), bringing them closer to the infringement fines Kiwis pay for littering, depending on the type and amount of litter.<\/p>\n
Fiji’s Climate and Environment Minister Lynda Tabuya told parliament on Tuesday that the reason for updating the litter law and increasing the fines was to change people’s behaviour.<\/p>\n
“If you litter, you pay,” Tabuya said.<\/p>\n
She said the fivefold increase in litter fines was not because the government wanted people’s money.<\/p>\n
“We would rather collect zero dollars in litter fines, because zero dollars in fines would mean people are doing the right thing.”<\/p>\n
The government will be strengthening the network of Litter Prevention Officers, including officers from municipal councils, the Fiji Police Force and the Land Transport Authority, she said.<\/p>\n
“We will track how many notices are issued, where offences are occurring and whether behaviour is changing,” she said.<\/p>\n
Tabuya said they would do this because the government does not want to simply assume the law is working.<\/p>\n
“We want to prove that [the law] is working.”<\/p>\n
The enforcement of the updated litter law takes effect on 1 September 2026.<\/p>\n
Last month, the Fijian government approved the National Integrated Waste Management and Pollution Control Strategy (2026-2035), the country’s national roadmap for the next decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fijians will soon start being fined five times more for littering after an amendment to the country’s litter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-573755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}