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Spain will ban selling fruit and vegetables in plastic containers starting 2023
- 1cvmask 5y agoFrom the article: The ban on plastic packaging will apply to fruit and vegetable products weighing less than one and a half kilograms. - So it not for bigger packages. Wonder what the package size mix is? If most packages are more than one and a half kilograms?
- pantulis 5y agoSpaniard here, from Madrid. A lot of fruit and veggies are sold here in prepackaged format (say, 5-6 apples or tomatoes) weighing below 1,5 kgs, specially online shops. I would not say it is the majority but it's absolutely usual. Most likely they will become bigger so as to weigh more than the limit.
- nivenkos 5y agoThey'll just sell it without packaging, and put it in paper bags. Dia/Amazon Prime already do this.
- remarkEon 5y agoWould still achieve the desired outcome of reducing plastic consumption, right?
- ceejayoz 5y agoPossibly. Larger containers may need to use thicker plastic to be more sturdy, so there's likely to be some trade-offs.
- Robotbeat 5y agoCould be at the expense of more food wastage.
- wibagusto 5y ago“food wastage” is not a real thing—non consumed food is perfect for composting and many other things. Organic materials literally cannot be wasted it gets 100% recycled. Single use plastic on the other hand takes the scenic route straight into the ocean…
- rad_gruchalski 5y agoAnd more food would get discarded and wasted. If one wanted to buy 1.5kg+ tomatoes, one would today. But people don’t.
- nicoburns 5y agoDo you not think most people would just use paper bags and still buy smaller quantities?
- rad_gruchalski 5y agoNo idea if most people but that’s what I do every time I visit an organic shop. I also bring my own bags. It’s not like it isn’t possible today.
- chefkoch 5y agoYou really think that you'll have to buy more than 1,5kg of tomatoes, so they don't have to change their packaging? This seems a bit unbelievable to me. Here in Germany the bio tomatoes in the supermarket are already in cardboard boxes, the normal one are often in cardboard with a plastic wrapper.
- pantulis 5y agoWoa, just checked my fridge and would you believe it, Amazon Fresh apples are now sent in cardboard boxes with no plastic wrapper!
- nicoburns 5y agoI think people will just use paper bags. That's what we all used to do anyway, and it worked fine. I think the heavy weight exemption is targeted at items like potatoes that people often buy in large bags.
- melenaboija 5y agoWhy would that happen?
- jimmaswell 5y agoDoes this only mean you can't buy prepackaged tomatoes, or you can't even use one of the little plastic bags that come off a roll that you put tomatoes from the display into?
- chmaynard 5y agoPackaging small quantities of fresh produce in plastic was a common practice at Trader Joe's and it always annoyed me. Not sure if this is still true.
- kibwen 5y agoI've seen this commented before, and it must be a regional thing, as I've never encountered this in the northeast.
- jjar 5y agohttps://archive.is/oKo1C https://archive.is/oKo1C Because that site is awful
- matsemann 5y agoThe packaging is to reduce food waste. Will it be a net loss or a win for the environment with more produce going bad?
- boudin 5y agoIt's not banning packaging, it's banning plastic packaging.
- whatever1 5y agoWhich is all of the packaging that can seal airtight things.
- comeonseriously 5y agoWhy does your fruit have to be in an air tight container?
- Y-bar 5y agoWhy do bananas, broccoli, bell peppers, potatoes and such vegetables require an airtight container? I see those and other produce regularly in plastic wrap or packaging here in Europe.
- foxfluff 5y agoI don't know about airtight but bananas have repeatedly made a tacky mess in my backpack. Also salads. Just the other week I had a tofu salad leak all over my backpack :( I'm now wrapping these in plastic bags.
- onion2k 5y agoI'm now wrapping these in plastic bags. You can use the same bag for many, many salads until one leaks and then you get a new bag. That is significantly better than supermarkets using a new bag for every salad.
- 5y ago
- easytiger 5y agoHow's that going to work for salad leaves that require co2 in packaging?
- chefkoch 5y agoI guess precut and washed salad counts as convinience food and as it would seem strange if you couldn't sell fruit salad in plastic containers.
- hammock 5y ago>the ban won't apply to food that is at risk of deterioration when sold in bulk
- eropple 5y agoThis bill won't affect bulk purchases, but for consumer-sized purchases salad greens don't require CO2 in packaging if you're expecting to use them in a reasonable amount of time. Our penchant for produce that doesn't go bad for very long periods of time is new, historically weird, and probably not great, yeah? Also, if you absolutely need greens that are more robust and last longer, there are options like cabbage that will last quite a while just sitting in the fridge.
- tomjen3 5y agoI don't want to shop daily, so I need produce that can last for at least a week. Otherwise I will cut them out of my diet, which will be slightly less healthy. We have had a penchant for food that doesn't go bad for very long periods of time for ages (why do you think meat was salted?). Achieving it, especially without ruining the food, is a very recent accomplishment, which naturally the environmental people are looking to take away.
- dylan604 5y ago>there are options like cabbage Yeah, but it's cabbage. So there's already an issue there. You forcing/suggesting someone to buy cabbage because it lasts longer than spinach, arugula, etc is not going to fly well with people that don't like cabbage.
- detritus 5y agoGood! I'm not sure when it happened exactly, but Spain went crazy for over-packaging supermarket fresh fruits and vegetables in plastic. When I lived there as a kid, it was basically just thin polyethylene bags. When I went back about three years ago.. it was much worse than here in Britain, which I already thought bad.
- hef19898 5y agoItalian supermarkets, at least all those i saw during my vacation there this summer, had bio-degradable bags for almost everything. Those that weren't you had to pay for. Not sure why that isn't the case everywhere. Of course, bringing your own non-plastic bag would be better.
- detritus 5y agoYeah, Italy is surprisingly good in this regard - even their recycling seems well-organised, although I'm still unsure how/why they mix soft plastics in with bottles, etc. I was under the impression that sort of mixing screwed up the recycling chain. I know I'm at constant loggerheads with my Italian partner who keeps putting soft plastics in the recyling here in London, even though it's supposed to be filtered out!
- hef19898 5y agoUs Germans are recycling for what seem to be forever. At first the Italian system (it is quite a while we spent time there) was really confusing. One get's used to it so, I still mixed up the colors between organic and plastic waste occsionally so.
- formerly_proven 5y agoA major reason for trash separation is actually easier furnace control for burning it, not recycling.
- gruez 5y ago>had bio-degradable bags for almost everything Are we talking "paper bags" or "bio-degradable plastics" here? The former is trivially compostable, whereas the latter requires industrial composting conditions, and depending on the polymer type, might just end up "composting" into microplastics.
- londons_explore 5y agoIf the goal is to reduce plastic waste... Why not just tax the plastic? For example, you could tax plastic to be sold to consumers per gram.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago>If the goal is to reduce plastic waste... Why not just tax the plastic? We could both ban plastics (e.g for food) and tax it (for other uses, e.g medical). Now, how can banning be less effective than taxing? Otherwise, we would have taxed murder instead of outlawing it right?
- londons_explore 5y agoUnpopular opinion: If you're a billionaire and commit murder, you will probably pay the top lawyer in the world and get away with it on a technicality. I'd prefer there just be a tax on murder. $100M plus 10x the value of the estate of the deceased ought to do it.
- xboxnolifes 5y agoIf they got away with murder before the tax, how is changing the punishment going to make them not get away with it?
- lotsofpulp 5y agoBecause it results in a greater inconvenience as opposed to targeting a specific item which will have less political opposition. We need to reduce consumption by x amount, but the political will is only there to reduce by .0001*x Otherwise, you would have seen far higher taxes on fossil fuels around the world decades ago.
- mythrwy 5y agoTax the plastic. Stop taxing the hourly paychecks.
- tarr11 5y agoCalifornia will have a proposition on the 2022 ballot eliminating foam packaging and imposing a 1 cent fee on plastic packaging to be paid by manufacturers. https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/20/new-california-ballot-measure-would-ban-styrofoam-food-packaging-force-industry-to-reduce-plastic-litter/amp/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/20/new-california-ballot...
- c54 5y agoDoes anyone else find this bit just comical: > The measure is opposed by the plastics industry. Tim Shestek, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, a trade association that includes large companies such as Dow, DuPont, 3M and ExxonMobil Chemical, called the measure “a massive taxpayer-funded giveaway of billions of dollars to fund a variety of special interest pet projects.” > He said it threatens small businesses like restaurants and that the plastics industry is committed to reducing plastic waste. Oh, good, the plastics industry is coming to help reduce how much plastic they sell. It's transparent to the point of being satirical! It's also just funny to me that the slightest price signal ($0.01 per piece of packaging) is deemed completely untenable, and further a 'giveaway' of funds. Give me a break! The market works on price signals. We are allowed to create signals to indicate our preferences (less trash everywhere please) in order to have the computer (the market) solve for a more optimal solution. Collective action (eg legislation like the one mentioned) is the way to do this!
- refurb 5y agoOh you know the only approved replacement for plastic will be some eco-plastic that the rep sponsoring the bill just so happens to have already invested in and actually takes more energy to produce than plastic.
- c54 5y agoThis is valid and interesting, in fact there are two almost separate problems we have from an environemntal/sustainability point of view: How much energy does a thing cost, and how much waste does it produce. These aren't the same! For instance, a plastic grocery bag costs minimal energy but produces infinite-lifespan waste, while a reusable cloth bag costs like 10,000x energy to produce (between farming cotton, spinning it, weaving it, etc), but if left outside would only last for several years (ie a 1/10,000 lifespan). We have to consider both these tradeoffs! Bioplastic probably is somewhere closer to a happy middle: costs 2x the energy of a tradplastic but lasts 1/10,000 shorter. Admittedly I've made up all these numbers but: all compromises aren't equal, we can do better than we do now, the multipliers matter
- zwieback 5y agoYay, I'm also in favor of heavily taxing the horrible packaging of consumer goods shipped from overseas. I don't have any illusions we can shift mass manufacturing back to the US, that doesn't make any sense, but I think we should force our suppliers to use more sustainable packaging, even if the prices go up.
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoWell, if you start enforcing quality standards, suddenly, local products become way more competitive.
- radu_floricica 5y ago1. It's nice of you to be in favor of rising prices you can afford to pay. Wonder how people that are already at the edge of choosing cheaper processed food will feel about it. 2. What's wrong about plastic packaging, exactly? The alternative use for oil is to burn it. Having it do something useful and then get buried doesn't sound so horrible.
- zeta0134 5y ago2. Wouldn't the idea here be to reduce the demand for that oil, so that we can slowly work to extract / burn less of it?
- radu_floricica 5y agoWhy, exactly? I mean, I totally get why we wouldn't want to burn oil. We breath that air and it increases CO2. But why exactly shouldn't we extract it? After all, you can do a lot of useful things with it. Like, for example, food packaging :) Also half the device you're reading this on, most likely.
- oneplane 5y agoBecause it is finite and has a cycle much longer than our generations of humans has. We're essentially creating problems instead of planning ahead. That said, the same can be said for a lot of other thing like natural resources we drain faster than we replace them. Perhaps those can be classified similarly. Beyond the limited availability of resources in the forms what we can make use of them, there is processing of those resources which has its own set of problems, as well as normal use of processed resources and waste management of used resources. Example: Aluminium as we know it takes a lot of energy to get to a state where we have a use for it (parts of machines, or foil for example) but once it is in that state and we treat it properly it can be used and re-used and recycled almost infinitely with comparatively minute amounts of energy. Imagine such a process for other resources where we won't have to constantly input new raw materials and energy to get more of the stuff we want. This is really hard for oil after we have changed it to whatever form we wanted to use it for; turning it back into oil or turning used oil into usable oil isn't exactly a viable process.
- Traubenfuchs 5y agoIt's like every year life for us now is becoming more uncomfortable for those alive in favor of those not yet alive. It's time for political "no future" parties that focus on those that are currently alive.
- toiletfuneral 5y agoProbably one of the worst comments I’ve witnessed on HN
- ivve 5y agoI really hope you're kidding.
- Traubenfuchs 5y agoI honestly believe there is lots of potential for making people realize this is a position one can believe, hold and live. The bullying from those who care more about some future humans I don't care about is getting out of hand. McDonalds paper straws literally tear the flesh from my lips after sucking the moisture out of them and I am fed up.
- stelonix 5y agoMeanwhile, the planet gets hotter and many more people die during heatwaves than 20 years ago. Are you sure your McDonalds experience is more important than preventing more and more people from ceasing to breathe?
- jazzyjackson 5y agohilarious
- dustymcp 5y agothats what every government has done since forever think its time to think of future children before we cook them?
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
- jarbus 5y agoOff topic, but I recently tried a free HelloFresh meal, and was blown away by how much plastic packing they used. Unbelievable, every individual thing was wrapped in tiny plastic.
- mdavis6890 5y agoAn important piece of information missing from ideas like this is how much of the overall total we are talking about. My guess is that plastic fruit and vegetable containers account for a very, very small portion of plastic use overall.
- acdha 5y agoYou'd also want to consider how much utility is gained from that use: a lot of food packaging is stuff like plastic wrap or paper/plastic/metal combinations which cannot be recycled, and it's only used once whereas a reusable plastic container might use 10x the volume of plastic but could be reused for many years.
- dcroley 5y agoWhat about berries?
- xorfish 5y agoKurzgesagt uploaded a video two days ago about climate change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc Fighting plastic packaging is one of the environmental issues that get an unreasonable amount of attention. It is more "look we did something" than "look we actually make an impact"
- bjt2n3904 5y agoThe progressive mindset is more and more dominated by the politicians syllogism: "We must do something! This is something, therefore we must do it!" Progress has no feedback loop, either, which combined with the above is a recipe for disaster. It's like software code churn. A bunch of git commits must indicate we're really getting some serious work done!
- melenaboija 5y agoOh yeah, because the conservative one is not all about "we have to do something". Progressist use plastic bags and conservative migration.
- cmrdporcupine 5y agoNice strawman you got there, shame if something were to happen to it.
- gruez 5y ago>It's like software code churn. A bunch of git commits must indicate we're really getting some serious work done! Is this seriously a thing? ie. people refactoring stuff for the sake of refactoring? Maybe the company I work at hasn't progressed to that stage yet, but the type of "change for the sake of change" that you're talking about I mostly see with designs/layouts.
- bjt2n3904 5y agoI'm not sure how much of a thing it is now, but managers would use github/lab metics to measure productivity. Any metric that becomes a stand in for success will be gamed.
- dustymcp 5y agojust wondering would this then mean we would need way more wood for baskets etc. that could be counter productive
- Markoff 5y agoRight, because this will save the planet, EU and western countries must be laughing stock in Asia/Africa. Pollution produced by EU/West is drop in ocean compared to pollution produced by Asian/African countries, but let's annoy everyone with smallest things, while people in Asia just dump trash into rivers/oceans. I really love when politicians flying in jets, riding limos tell me, someone doesn't even own car, how my few plastic bags per week or packaging of grapes is destroying the planet. At least 90% with kids I know regularly use car, but hey, I am destroying planet because unlike them I don't use those useless single use paper bags, but use for grocery same few plastic bags for years, same with recycling, God forbid to admit you just dump your stuff without recycling (let's ignore the fact you are just helping recycling companies to make money, since they have to sort out recycled trash anyway, you just make it cheaper for them, recycling is good business). EDIT: thanks in advance for downvotes from people who never been to Asia to see how clean it's there and who ride their car everywhere to preach me
- variant 5y agoYes. Completely pointless and impossible to objectively measure for any meaningful signal from the implementation. Perfect for politicians.
- endisneigh 5y agoIs there any need to ban it? Impose a reasonably priced tax and this, along with all other superfluous plastic usage, will end.
- mping 5y agoWe all know how the carbon tax ended.
- xboxnolifes 5y agoI don't even know how the carbon tax started, so could you explain how it ended?
- dingaling 5y agoTaxes for food-related policies are unfortunately regressive. The people who can least afford it are hardest hit. Furthermore that might discourage purchase of healthy food.
- mongol 5y agoBut if this means that more fruit and vegetables will spoil, it may not be so good. What kind of containers are used for fruit in Spain? For example grapes are sold in plastic containers where I live. They are kind of sensitive for pressure.
- tantalor 5y agoThese paper cartons seem like good replacement: made entirely of recycled pulp to provide a sustainable alternative to plastic products... it is compostable https://www.webstaurantstore.com/ecochoice-2-5-qt-green-molded-pulp-berry-produce-basket-pack/9994135.html https://www.webstaurantstore.com/ecochoice-2-5-qt-green-mold...
- beckman466 5y agoThis is only a half measure and doesn't directly tackle the emissions or pollution problems in today's disgustingly wasteful and destructive global food production system. We need 1.) more travel distance labels that show where things are from, while 2.) at the same time showing how much of the costs are government subsidized, as well as the emissions generated by the transportation costs. Of course we need corresponding shifts, e.g. in helping communities learn how to cook with seasonal vegetables etc.. Living in the Netherlands, I don't need to eat asparagus from Peru in December. But yeah, like in the airline and oil industries, it's the use of subsidies that's one of the root problems (although we all know that the US military industrial complex alone is one of the biggest polluters [1]). We need more signaling systems that show the real costs; not to shame the working class who buy food (or pretend they have any real power to effect change), but to help reveal to them the wastefulness and destruction of the current system. "Many urbanised people have lost touch with the sources of their food, and may not realize that the distance their food travels has been steadily increasing. In the US, the average pound of food now travels 1,500 miles before it reaches the dinner table, and the distance continues to grow. Much of this transport is needless: every day, identical commodities pass in opposite directions, criss-crossing the globe. The ‘logic’ of the global economy leads the US and other nations to import hundreds of thousands of tons of staple foods each year, while simultaneously exporting roughly the same amount. In an era of dwindling fossil fuel reserves and rising CO2 emissions, this is both senseless and wasteful. But it is a trend that is accelerating as governments systematically promote a single, globalized food system." - Helena Norberg Hodge [2] [1] https://qz.com/1655268/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter-than-140-countries-combined/ https://qz.com/1655268/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter-than... [2] https://www.localfutures.org/the-case-for-local-food/ https://www.localfutures.org/the-case-for-local-food/
- syshum 5y agoOr rather look at ways to why food is traveling more would should be counter intuative, and is likely caused by increased regulations and taxation in local area's that make food production unprofitable locally so it has to move further and further to make it work economically But yes more government regulations, more labeling, and shaming poor people into buying more expensive food is the better path ... Once again government creates a problem, then people look to government to solve the very problem it created which creates even more problems //When my "Local" farmer is charging 4-5x more than the supermarket for the same food, guess where I am shopping... hint it is not local
- Flockster 5y agoIs there a picture of those containers in question? What are we talking about here? Bananas in plastic boxes? Because in my supermarket in Germany, nearly everything is without packaging, except maybe berries in cardboard containers. There was a public discussion about organic cucumbers in shrinkwrap, I think for differentiation reasons. But many switched to simple stickers here.
- Markoff 5y agoi think it's mostly berries and grapes at least here in Czechia, cherry tomatoes are usualyl in cardboard though still in plastic bag cucumbers should be shrink wrapped, they go bad MUCH faster if unwrapped, so you will eliminate any benefit of removing plastic by much more food waste
- julbook 5y agoSome fruits and vegetables might perish because of this one unless they find a feasible way to preserve the longevity of the goods.