Bulk fruits and vegetables are still plasticized: nobody puts an end to overpackaging

Fruits and vegetables are still plasticized in stores. Apples, pears, carrots, cucumbers, onions and other vegetables are still hermetically wrapped in plastic. And in most cases without a logical need to justify it.

It is another example of its proliferation. There is a royal decree that prohibits such packaging in bulk products but it will not come into force until the end of the year, and it will have exceptions.

Meanwhile, “everyone is packaging as they want”, admit sources in the sector. Initiatives are hardly perceived before the norm enters into force; quite the contrary.

“More than 90% of these products, fruits and vegetables, do not need plastic material for their conservation; That wrapping material would not be necessary”, explains Luis Gil Vicente, an expert in packaging technologies at Ainia, a technological innovation center.

This expert attributes this unjustified overpackaging to the desire of brands to want to differentiate themselves by using the packaging as a support to place their own messages. “Overpackaging is of interest to companies, because it allows them to differentiate themselves, place the label, the characteristics and other differentiating elements on it,” he says.

“The bulk presentation of fresh vegetables and fruits and the elimination of unnecessary plastic, required by the royal decree on packaging of December 2022, is urgent,” says Carlos Arribas, an expert at Ecologistas en Acción.

The royal decree on packaging (of December 27, 2022) prohibits whole fruits and vegetables sold in bulk from being wrapped in plastic. However, the regulations will not enter into force until December of this year. In addition, this veto includes the possibility of authorizing exceptions that have yet to be specified.

Specifically, in the first place, the regulations allow plastic to continue to be used if the bag of fruit and vegetables sold weighs 1.5 kilos or more.

Fruit and vegetables under a protected variety, which have a differentiated quality or come from organic farming, could also get rid of the ban on plastic. Likewise, those that when sold present a risk of deterioration or shrinkage may be excepted. In all these exceptional cases, it will be the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (Aesan) that will agree on a list of foods that could benefit from the exception.

The administrations have until the end of June of this year to fix this list; and when it is defined, it will give another six months to trade to be able to adapt before it enters into force. The result is that the rule will not apply until December.

There are some products, such as strawberries, blueberries or raspberries, and in general red fruits, which are very fragile, which “must necessarily be protected in some way to avoid damage,” says Gil. In the case of red fruits, the solution that the Food Safety Agency will foreseeably adopt will be the use of PET plastic trays, although they could be protected with cardboard boxes (material not subject to the restriction).

The restrictions will not prevent us from seeing four apples in a cardboard box soon. Gil maintains that the exceptions will be very specific and must be justified.

“For example, not all pears will go without plastic, but maybe some variety does require it,” says this specialist.

The Rezero Foundation fears that exceptions are the norm and that the spirit of the royal decree on packaging will continue to be distorted.

Rosa García, director of the Rezero Foundation, is very critical of the application of the various state regulations on packaging and waste. “Despite the regulations on plastics and the speeches of the companies, consumers do not see changes when it comes to shopping. Supermarket shelves are still full of totally unnecessary single-use containers,” says García.

The industry is applying a “delaying tactic” in the application of the regulations to prevent the generation of waste, adds this specialist, who is in favor of the administrations being more strict to achieve an effective reduction of this type of waste.

The Waste Law allows replacing single-use plastic containers and utensils with alternative materials, such as bioplastics or paper and cardboard. “But we are seeing a proliferation of these alternatives, thus failing to meet the goal of objective waste reduction and perpetuating the throwaway culture,” he says. All this has environmental consequences and entails extra economic costs in the management of this new waste (“bioplastics or paper and cardboard that we do not know until they will be collected and recycled”).

Another reprehensible strategy -he adds- is the use of environmental slogans that use, in printing and labeling, inappropriate or fraudulent messages, such as “100% recyclable packaging” (although the Rezero Foundation estimates that only a quarter of the packaging is are recycling), “product made with 100% recycled material”, “or packaging with zero emission” or “zero waste packaging”. The Waste Law prohibited the use of the slogan “responsible packaging with the environment”, “but we believe that it should go further to avoid greewashing”. And in this sense, the arrival of a new directive that penalizes these “fraudulent” messages is expected.

Rezero also denounces the obstacles that continue to be placed so that reuse initiatives can be promoted and materialized. “We saw it in the packaging decree and we are seeing it now in the European Union’s packaging directive”, to whose draft 2,000 allegations have been submitted that the industry has made to get its ambition lowered. “We need a reuse economy,” Garcia says.