4 ms·

The amount of plastic we use is sad. When I go to the grocery store, the apples are wrapped in plastic, broccoli wrapped in plastic, baked goods are in plastic,

• njarboe 4y ago
  This is not done at every grocery store. It can preserve freshness and prevent some types of damage during shipping and handling (getting dirty, etc.)
  • enlyth 4y ago
    True not in every store, but at least in the UK I see it in most stores, for a large selection of produce. I found an article stating that it actually increases food waste: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/ulstergrocer/retail/plastic-packaging-on-fruit-and-veg-increases-waste/41380453.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/ulstergrocer/ret... Obviously I cannot verify these claims, but it seems like could be one of many easy wins to reduce our plastic consumption. And getting dirty should be expected, these things come from the ground most of the time, that's why you wash your vegetables at home before eating them.
• sebazzz 4y ago
  By now brocolli and fish are also wrapping plastic. Which themselves are wrapped in plastic.
• micromacrofoot 4y ago
  Plastic is cheap, durable, and water-resistant, that's really all there is to it. When individual items are all packaged like this you can cut corners in a lot of other places. Until there's an equally cheap equally effective alternative plastic will be used unless we regulate against it, it's simply too convenient.
  • licebmi__at__ 4y ago
    >cheap More like not properly priced.
    • deathhand 4y ago
      I was going to write a witty intellectual comment about capitalism at work but with further reflection it needs to come from "both sides". The economically disadvantage use plastic in their everyday life and an arbitrary tax on it would negatively effect them and make their lives harder. At the same time they can see through the income gap that those who could afford an increase of plastic still shit all over the environment and would further lead to a divide in the issue. The most recent example of this is people complaining about plastic straws whilst private jet use in unabated.
      • baq 4y ago
        You say tax and that's how the policy should be implemented, but the real thing the tax would try to capture is externalities. Some of the bad stuff plastic does (I guess most of it, actually) is not included in its price. This is not at all capitalism.
• dividedbyzero 4y ago
  If there wasn't a wrapper I'd pack it in a little baggie to not have to deal with broccoli bits at the bottom of my backpack. Also washing won't get rid of everything and that way a sick cashier has a lower chance of smearing something onto the produce (especially relevant if I'm not going to cook it). But why do those wrappers and baggies and whatnot need to be non-biodegradable? This stuff needs to survive for a week or two at most, they should make it rot away afterwards.
  • will_walker 4y ago
    Is this something that a paper bag could solve for?
    • dividedbyzero 4y ago
      Paper is heavier and bulkier, production is pretty resource intensive, recycling doesn't work all that well, it's not transparent, and you may have to line it with something else to make it hold up to moisture. It's better than plastic I guess but a non-fossil-sourced and easily biodegradable plastic would be kind of perfect for this, even if it was a little less sturdy than the current mainstream options.
      • JohnFen 4y ago
        > It's better than plastic I guess but a non-fossil-sourced and easily biodegradable plastic would be kind of perfect for this It would be, but plastic like that that is also suitable for use as a bag doesn't exist.
        • dividedbyzero 4y ago
          > It would be, but plastic like that that is also suitable for use as a bag doesn't exist. There is quite a bit of R&D in the biodegradable plastics space and the EU is banning more and more single use plastics so I'm hopeful that will change. One store around here piloted corn-based ones and while they weren't quite as sturdy and certainly very expensive, they worked ok-ish (and apparently biodegraded within years).
• em500 4y ago
  Because it reduces food spoiling. Without some deeper research, it's not clear cut whether the benefits of plastic packaging reduction outweigh the costs of extra spoilage. IIRC analysis from Wageningen University suggested that they don't.
  • ta8903 4y ago
    I assume this is only a concern because in America you're forced to make grocery trips once a week because of the suburban layout and car-centric development instead of getting fresh food off the corner store every other day like most countries.
    • JohnFen 4y ago
      But in the US (or at least my part of it), it's not common to find produce individually wrapped in plastic. I always thought that was more of a European thing.
      • frosted-flakes 4y ago
        Stuff like cucumbers, yes, because otherwise they would have much too short of a shelf life. Otherwise I don't think I've ever seen individual fruits or vegetables wrapped in plastic here in Canada, and I didn't think that grocery stores in the USA are very different from ours. Bulk bags of apples, carrots, grapes, lettuce, spinach, etc., certainly, but individual apples wrapped in plastic seems ridiculous.
    • bmitc 4y ago
      That's a sort of stereotype, though. Japan is one of the most urbanized countries in the world, if not the most urbanized, and it has some of the most disproportionate plastic use.
• joshspankit 4y ago
  As someone who has worked with many businesses, there is an unfortunate bit of psychology I can share: Many customers are more comfortable buying items in plastic packaging because they associate plastic with clean/sanitary/professionally produced.
• red-iron-pine 4y ago
  > Why do they do this? Plastics are made in huge quantities from by products of oil, gas, and coal. Petroleum is decomposed under heat into gasoline, kerosene, naphtha, light oil, heavy oil, etc. Most plastics use naphtha as main raw material. Naphtha is further decomposed thermally and separated utilizing the difference in the boiling point (temperature at which the phase change from liquid to gas occurs) to form ethylene and propylene, which are the raw materials for plastics. Chances are the electricity that you're using to read this was generated by oil / gas / coal; the world runs on oil. Plastics are essentially a convenient by-product, which can be made cheaply and in bulk, and they do a good job preserving foods.
  • bmitc 4y ago
    That doesn't answer the why question.
    • canadianfella 4y ago
      Plastics are essentially a convenient by-product, which can be made cheaply and in bulk, and they do a good job preserving foods.