Ban on plastic packaging: 25 fruits and vegetables could escape it

Twenty-five fruits and vegetables could be permanently exempted from the ban on plastic packaging while six may have to abandon plastic sooner than expected, according to the new draft decree submitted for public consultation by the government.

This consultation, launched on December 15 and open to comments from citizens until January 12, comes just a few days after the cancellation on December 9 by the Council of State of the previous implementing decree.

The latter, published in October 2021, prohibited since January 1, 2022 the marketing in plastic packaging of a certain number of unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables (with the exception of those packaged in batches of more than 1.5 kg), while setting exemption tolerances to this rule until June 2026 for certain particularly fragile foods such as red fruits, aromatic herbs or mushrooms.

However, this progressive timetable and a certain number of these derogations have been deemed illegal by the Council of State, seized in particular by the plastics manufacturers.

France's highest administrative court found that the State had exceeded the mandate given to it under the law on the fight against waste and the circular economy.

For her, if there was an exemption, it had to be definitive or not, and her only motivation had to be the risk of deterioration in the event of a bulk sale.

The tomatoes can wait… the salad will have to be quicker

Pressed to review its copy, the government had assured that a “new decree, even firmer, (was) already being drafted”.

In the new text, the list of fruits and vegetables exempt from prohibition is actually shorter than the previous one, going from 43 to 25. But unlike the previous decree, the exemptions are this time final.

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Thus, raspberries, strawberries, endives, spinach, mushrooms, all ripe fruits and other sprouted seeds are included in the new list of fruits and vegetables presenting a risk of deterioration when sold in bulk and may therefore continue to be marketed in plastic. indefinitely.

With the previous decree, they should have got rid of it no later than June 30, 2026. This is precisely what a number of environmental defense associations feared.

And concerning the 18 fruits and vegetables passed from the derogation to the ban, a majority are in fact granted a deadline, until December 31, 2023, the time to sell the stocks.

Some therefore save time, such as tomatoes, grapes and apricots, the exemption of which previously ended on June 30, 2023, others, on the other hand, will have to do without plastic sooner than expected, such as cherries, broccoli or lettuce, for which the derogation would run until December 31, 2024.