While plastic wrapping on cucumbers, lychees, and other fruits might be protective and convenient, the plastic used has a negative impact on the environment and is not necessary to enjoy fresh fruit. Plastic packaging is often used to protect the fruit from dirt and other contaminants, to extend the fruit’s freshness, and to be able to add labels to mark the price. Although these are great reasons to use plastic packaging, fruit is easier to pick out, easier to use, and creates less plastic waste when it is not wrapped in plastic.
The Convenience of Wrapping Fruit in Plastic
Wrapping fruit in plastic protects it and keeps it fresh longer. If fruit is wrapped in plastic, you don’t have to worry about dirt, insects, people touching the fruit, or external factors affecting the fruit and making it inedible. It also keeps the fruit fresh for a longer period. Cucumbers are one type of fruit that benefits from wrapping it in plastic. Cucumbers stay fresh 11 days longer if wrapped in plastic packaging rather than not being wrapped. Even with these conveniences, it generally makes more sense not to wrap fruits in plastic.
Easier to Choose
Fruit is easier to choose when not in plastic packaging. If fruit is loose rather than wrapped, you can see if it is ripe or not, and you can also feel it to determine if it is soft or hard to your liking. Hardness or softness is often the only indicator of the ripeness of some types of fruit. Plastic packaging prevents the consumer from being able to determine the ripeness.
Easier to Prepare
Fruit is easier to prepare and use when not wrapped in plastic. Plastic is often challenging to open without a knife or other tool. And the danger of microplastic landing in your food could be drastically reduced by using alternatives.
Plastic Is Not Environmentally Friendly
Plastic is a major threat to the environment, as it accumulates in bodies of water, such as rivers and the ocean. The animals in these bodies of water then eat the plastic or get tangled in it, which threatens the health of water-related ecosystems. Furthermore, the plastic also accumulates in landfills, causing harm to ecosystems on land as well. The plastic used to package fruit at the supermarket contributes to these harmful environmental effects, putting many ecosystems at risk.
What Consumers Can Do
As consumers, we can choose not to buy fruits wrapped in plastic. We can look for fruit that is not wrapped, which minimizes the amount of plastic we use. The more consumers purchase fruits that are not wrapped in plastic, the more supermarkets will respond accordingly by providing fruits that are not wrapped in plastic, as consumer demand will encourage supermarkets to change direction. We can also provide feedback through online feedback forms or emails to supermarkets to urge them to change how fruits are packaged.
What Supermarkets Can Do
Supermarkets can reduce the amount of plastic packaging to only package fruits that are necessary to package, such as berries and grapes. Eliminating as much plastic packaging as possible cuts down on business costs, as plastic packaging costs extra for the supermarket to use. Eliminating plastic packaging means also that the supermarket is positively impacting the environment, which is good for everyone. Furthermore, supermarkets can find other ways to label fruits so that plastic packaging is not needed, such as applying the label directly to the piece of fruit or using laser printing.
There are many convenient reasons for using plastic packaging on fruits, but there are just as many reasons not to use it that have a far less harmful impact on the environment. Whether you are the consumer or the supermarket owner, we can all take action to eliminate unnecessary plastic packaging on cucumbers, lychees, and other fruits.