WRAP calls for ban on packaging for 21 fruit and veg items

Environmental charity WRAP has on Thursday called for a ban on packaging for 21 fruit and vegetable items.

Harriet Lamb, chief executive at WRAP, made the call coinciding with Recycle Week, noting that a household of four spends an estimated £1000 a year on food that gets thrown away.

The call follows WRAP's research in collaboration with the cross party think tank Policy Connect, which identified the 21 fruit and veg, from apples and pears to potatoes, which could be freed from packaging and sold loose on the shelves.

“Sometimes you need a carrot (bought loose of course) and a stick, for a successful outcome,” Lamb said, pointing out that regulation is essential.

“It should prove popular: 64 per cent of us say we prefer to buy loose. But then we don't always put that into practice in the store. So, until regulation does come into force, let’s support companies who offer loose fruit and veg, and buy it when it’s offered - shopping like our nan back in the day when everyone chose what they wanted in the grocery store.”

Almost 1.7 million tonnes of edible fruit and vegetables are thrown away each year, costing citizens £4 billion. WRAP research has found that if all apples, bananas and potatoes were sold loose, 60,000 tonnes of food waste could be saved, plastic packaging would be reduced by 8,800 tonnes per year, which together represent a saving of more than 80,000 tonnes of CO2e.

WRAP called for a phased ban, with first phase in force by 2030, to align with the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) timeframes.

The ban should be on primary packaging, not just a plastics ban, for whole, uncut fresh produce items sold in amounts less than 1.5kg, the organisation said.