See How Long Different Foods Last Without Plastic Wrap.
Why do cucumbers and apples need shrink wrap? Don’t grocers realize how much plastic they’re wasting? They may not be wasting anything at all. As it turns out, plastic waste isn’t the industry’s biggest environmental problem. Food waste is.
Americans throw away a whopping 30-40% of their food—not just scraps and trimmings, but wholesome food that’s perfectly good to eat. Often, we toss away food solely on the basis of appearance. Vegetables wilt from lack of humidity. Meat turns brown when exposed to oxygen. Both can still be safe and tasty, even if they don’t look quite as appealing as the day you brought them home. The challenge is to keep the food we grow fresher longer—so more of it reaches our plate, and less ends up in landfills.
What can we do about all this waste? Plastic packaging could be part of the solution. Plastic dramatically extends the shelf life of food, giving it a better chance of being eaten instead of landing in the trash.
See how much longer popular foods last when they’re packaged in plastic.
| Cucumber | Unwrapped | Wrapped in Plastic |
| Lasts for | Lasts for | |
| 5 days | Up to 14 days |
Cucumbers seem like the poster child for excessive packaging. What’s wrong with cucumbers’ natural skins? According to the Cucumber Growers’ Association, unwrapped cucumbers can degrade to the point that they are essentially unsellable after just 3 days. A thin plastic wrapping can make them last nearly 5 times as long.
Many other foods benefit from a little plastic protection:
| Red Meat | Unwrapped | Wrapped in Plastic |
| Lasts for | Lasts for | |
| 3 days | 6 days |
| Bananas | Unwrapped | Wrapped in Plastic |
| Lasts for | Lasts for | |
| 15 days | 36 days |
| Bell Peppers | Unwrapped | Wrapped in Plastic |
| Lasts for | Lasts for | |
| 4 days | 20 days |
INCPEN, a packaging industry trade association, says plastic wrapping also helps protect fruit with delicate skin—like apples—from bruising. Damaged fruit is much more likely sit unsold in a produce bin.
| Apples | Wrapped in Plastic |
| 27% Less Waste | |
| from Orchard to Table |
Today, consumers are rightly concerned about wasteful packaging. But if plastic can help keep $1 trillion in food out of landfills, it may not really be wasteful at all.
<call-out: infographic—This could be developed for social media>
WHY FOOD WASTE MATTERS | FOOD is the most prevalent material in LANDFILLS | LANDFILLS generate 20% of all METHANE EMISSIONS | METHANE is a GREENHOUSE GAS that’s 21 times MORE POTENT than C02 |
| We use 30% of ALL AGRICULTURAL LAND ON EARTH | And MORE WATER than ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD | to grow food that is THROWN AWAY without being eaten | |
References:
https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2007/10/29/food-packaging-and-climate-change
https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i41/cost-plastic-packaging.html
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2018/03/reason-why-we-use-plastics-to-package-food/#_ftn2
