WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Plastic soy sauce bottles shaped like fish are tiny, cute and beloved by many sushi eaters. But in the state of South Australia, the decorative containers swam into a growing net of outlawed plastics.

Officials enacted an unusually specific ban on the fish-shaped bottles beginning Monday, saying they were worse for the environment than other condiment containers.

The state of 1.9 million was the first in Australia to institute the prohibition in an initiative to curb plastic waste. South Australia’s government has annually added new items to its list of banned plastics, making the measures the country’s most comprehensive.

Fish-shaped bottles were singled out

Singling out the fishy containers might seem unusually specific, but officials said the receptacles we

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