No more plastic labels
During a project in 2015 we tried as a team to reduce household waste. One of the biggest contributors to everyday life is food packaging, especially the thin plastic wrapping used to protect fruit and vegetables. Since then I was trying to buy vegetables, which are not wrapped. An EU regulation enforces the labelling of a product, though, making sticky plastic labels the most sustainable option so far. These are not recyclable and don’t stick properly to every kind of vegetable/fruit.
The company laserfood came up with a solution. Dubbed “natural branding”, the technique uses a strong light to remove pigment from the skin of produce. The mark is invisible once skin is removed and doesn’t affect shelf life or eating quality.
Approved by EU Organic certifier SKAL, the contact-free method needs less than 1 percent of the energy needed for a sticker to be produced, as well as creating less than 1 percent of the carbon emission needed.
“By using natural branding on all the organic avocados we would sell in one year we will save 200km (135 miles) of plastic 30cm wide. It’s small but I think it adds up,” says Peter Hagg, ICA business unit manager.
The Dutch fruit and veg supplier Nature & More and the Swedish supermarket ICA trialling this method of labeling. M&S already uses it for coconuts.
I love this idea. It isn’t more expensive for the producer, while saving on emissions, reducing plastic waste and solves the problem of labels falling off.
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