The French Ministry of environment announced last week that in order to reduce plastic waste, France will ban the use of plastic packaging for almost all fruits and vegetables from January 2022.
In order to implement a law of February 2020, the government issued a list of about 30 kinds of fruits and vegetables that must be sold without plastic packaging from January 1.
The vegetable list includes leek, zucchini, eggplant, pepper, cucumber, potato and carrot, round tomato, onion and radish, cabbage, cauliflower, pumpkin, European windbreak, radish, Jerusalem artichoke and rhizome vegetables.
It also includes apple, pear, orange, kiwi fruit, lemon, citrus, plum, melon, pineapple, mango and other fruits.
“We use a lot of disposable plastics in our daily life. The circular economy law aims to reduce the use of disposable plastics and promote the substitution of other materials or reusable and recyclable packaging,” the Ministry said in a statement.
It is estimated that 37% of fruits and vegetables are sold in packaging. It is estimated that this measure can prevent more than 1 billion useless plastic packaging items every year.
Francois Roch, President of the Federation of French fruit sellers, said it would be difficult to switch to cardboard in such a short time.
The packaging ban is part of a multi-year government plan to phase out plastics. The Ministry of environment said that the ban would be extended to all fruits and vegetables no later than June 2026 in order to find “alternative solutions” for plastic packaging. This will be used for mature fruits and berries, which may deteriorate if sold in large quantities.
Post time: Nov-01-2021