Several additional fruits and vegetables may continue to be marketed with plastic containers, according to a decree published this Wednesday, which expands the list with respect to the most ambitious draft text submitted for public consultation at the end of 2022.
Salad, asparagus, broccoli, early potatoes, early carrots and cherries thus return to the list of exempt products, along with, for example, lamb’s lettuce, endives, mushrooms, spinach, raspberries, strawberries or blueberries.
You can also wrap in plastic sprouted seeds, cherries, black currants, gooseberries.
29 exempt fruits or vegetables
In total, the decree lists 29 exempt fruits or vegetables, in addition to “ripe fruit” that is “sold to the final consumer at full maturity” and sprouted seeds.
The exemption is granted due to the “risk of deterioration” if these products are sold in bulk, according to the official text, which replaces a first decree annulled last December by the Council of State.
Published in October 2021, it prohibited from January 1, 2022 the marketing in plastic containers 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 it set exemption tolerances for this rule until June 2026 for certain especially fragile foods.
Decree judged by the Council of State
However, this progressive schedule and a certain number of these exceptions have been deemed illegal by the State Council, seized in particular by plastics manufacturers.
The government then submitted a new text for public consultation, considerably shortening the list of fruits and vegetables that could be preserved in plastic packaging. But unlike the canceled decree, the exemptions are final this time.
In all cases, fruits and vegetables that are not exempt are also granted a term, until December 31, 2023, “to allow the disposal of packaging stocks.”
Source: BFM TV
