The Council of State annuls the decree banning plastic packaging for fruits and vegetables

Less than a year after its entry into force, plastic packaging around certain fruits and vegetables could return to the stalls: the Council of State on Friday canceled the decree implementing this measure, deeming it "

" and asking the State to write a new text.

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Since January 1, 2022, many unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables, such as courgettes, peppers, cucumbers, apples, pears or oranges, could no longer be sold in plastic packaging.

The implementing decree was published in October 2021 and notably set tolerances for plastic packaging until 2026 for the most fragile such as red fruits.

It is this progressive schedule that was deemed illegal by the Council of State, seized in particular by plastics manufacturers, the highest administrative body judging that the State had exceeded the mandate which had been set for it within the framework of the law on the fight against waste and the circular economy.

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The law on the fight against waste and the circular economy had entrusted the Government with the task of listing the only fruits and vegetables presenting a risk of deterioration if they were sold in bulk, in order to exempt them from the ban on plastic packaging permanently.

By decree of October 8, 2021, the Government had drawn up a list of around forty fruits and vegetables that can still be sold in plastic packaging, specifying for each until when they can be sold with this packaging.

However, the Government had included in its list fruits and vegetables not necessarily presenting a risk of deterioration, and had fixed, for each of these fruits and vegetables,

the period during which they could continue to be sold in plastic packaging after January 1, 2022. This is why the list drawn up by the Government has been challenged by several associations before the Council of State, which now considers it illegal.

In addition to the pressure put by the plastics manufacturers, who considered the calendar impossible to put in place.