Good, there’s a liquid carrot in most bags, It’s almost like they’re mixing the off ones into the new ones to get rid.
As long as it isn’t counter productive – cucumbers out of plastic don’t last nearly as long for example and if one in the pile spoils, the rest would soon follow. Supermarkets shouldn’t use plastic out of pure convenience, like if they bunch bananas so they can put a barcode on the plastic surround. They can sell individually without a problem. Can more also use paper packaging at least, maybe potatoes for example? The silly thing is go out the back of a supermarket and look what it is all transported and wrapped in, plastic aplenty. What is on the actual shop floor is only part of the story.
It’s one of the main reasons I don’t shop at M&S. Everything in the fresh aisle seems to come in plastic.
Quite bloody right nobody asked for everything to be smothered in plastic packaging except the Tories in their endless ploys to create dividends from everything that is not nailed down.
I avoid buying chard, spinach, and other leafy vegetables, that I eat raw or lightly cooked, from a local market specifically because they have loose leaves that all the shoppers paw through to find perfect specimens – and bacterial contamination from repeated handling is a major issue in such vegetables. It’s important to minimise the amount of people touching them from farm to plate.
I’m not going to buy any loose-leaf salad vegetables from supermarkets if they let everyone feel them up with their dirty hands too.
They can pack them in paper or similar if they want, but I’m not buying them loose.
As long as they wrap them in something else or provide paper bags to put them in. Direct contact with filthy trollies and baskets is not desirable.
I’m from America and when I moved to the UK I thought plastic packaging on fruits and veg was very strange. In the US people pick up pieces of fruit and veg individually to check for freshness. You just pay for everything by weight.
Good. When I buy a bag of potatoes I don’t need 2.5kg of the stuff – a lot of wastage as I live alone.
I queried Tesco a while back (talking pre-covid) asking why they charge more for unpackaged fruit and veg as opposed to the plastic wrapped stuff.
They fed off some line about the prices varying depending on circumstances outside of their control.
My public question was then jumped on by a supermarket employee stating that they actively try to discourage the sales of unpacked items as it causes more mess which in turn requires cleaning which in turn means less profit.
Unsure if it’s true, but certainly sounds like something that the supermarkets would do.
What a load of rubbish. Food is put in plastic packaging not because they have excess plastic to use but because it makes it fresher for longer.
Yet the amount of plastic litter everywhere in the country does not bother anyone.
Breaking: Food waste soars in 2025 following recent reforms to packaging laws
Brits already bin almost 1/3 their food, why would we want to increase waste further?
The pepper and cauliflower bags piss me off the most.
I’ve always wondered why we have to recycle at home ie green bin, blue bin is all bins out in public are for everything other than the shit bins.
This needs to be done intelligently and specifically – plastic wrap greatly increases the shelf life of products like cucumber and broccoli.
I agree about plastic bags for carrots though, that can fuck off forever. Potatoes too.
That’s the only logical next step after phasing out the “free” plastic bags. They already sell these special bags for loose fruit and veg.
Let’s just hope they will put more scales in the aisles otherwise it will be another chance to be stuck in a queue.
I honestly can’t think of anything worse than the average member of the public handling my fruit before I have to eat it. It very unhygienic and would put me off eating it. It’s not as bad for veg which is going to be cooked but we definitely shouldn’t be forced to buy loose fruit.
“potential ban” , “government considers”
It would be a great change but we’re not there yet
I’ve started recycling my soft plastics at the local CoOp and almost all of it is fresh food wrappers – it’s shocking how much we still create even though a lot of our shop is at a greengrocers with paper bags.
18 comments
Good, there’s a liquid carrot in most bags, It’s almost like they’re mixing the off ones into the new ones to get rid.
As long as it isn’t counter productive – cucumbers out of plastic don’t last nearly as long for example and if one in the pile spoils, the rest would soon follow. Supermarkets shouldn’t use plastic out of pure convenience, like if they bunch bananas so they can put a barcode on the plastic surround. They can sell individually without a problem. Can more also use paper packaging at least, maybe potatoes for example? The silly thing is go out the back of a supermarket and look what it is all transported and wrapped in, plastic aplenty. What is on the actual shop floor is only part of the story.
It’s one of the main reasons I don’t shop at M&S. Everything in the fresh aisle seems to come in plastic.
Quite bloody right nobody asked for everything to be smothered in plastic packaging except the Tories in their endless ploys to create dividends from everything that is not nailed down.
I avoid buying chard, spinach, and other leafy vegetables, that I eat raw or lightly cooked, from a local market specifically because they have loose leaves that all the shoppers paw through to find perfect specimens – and bacterial contamination from repeated handling is a major issue in such vegetables. It’s important to minimise the amount of people touching them from farm to plate.
I’m not going to buy any loose-leaf salad vegetables from supermarkets if they let everyone feel them up with their dirty hands too.
They can pack them in paper or similar if they want, but I’m not buying them loose.
As long as they wrap them in something else or provide paper bags to put them in. Direct contact with filthy trollies and baskets is not desirable.
I’m from America and when I moved to the UK I thought plastic packaging on fruits and veg was very strange. In the US people pick up pieces of fruit and veg individually to check for freshness. You just pay for everything by weight.
Good. When I buy a bag of potatoes I don’t need 2.5kg of the stuff – a lot of wastage as I live alone.
I queried Tesco a while back (talking pre-covid) asking why they charge more for unpackaged fruit and veg as opposed to the plastic wrapped stuff.
They fed off some line about the prices varying depending on circumstances outside of their control.
My public question was then jumped on by a supermarket employee stating that they actively try to discourage the sales of unpacked items as it causes more mess which in turn requires cleaning which in turn means less profit.
Unsure if it’s true, but certainly sounds like something that the supermarkets would do.
What a load of rubbish. Food is put in plastic packaging not because they have excess plastic to use but because it makes it fresher for longer.
Yet the amount of plastic litter everywhere in the country does not bother anyone.
Breaking: Food waste soars in 2025 following recent reforms to packaging laws
Brits already bin almost 1/3 their food, why would we want to increase waste further?
The pepper and cauliflower bags piss me off the most.
I’ve always wondered why we have to recycle at home ie green bin, blue bin is all bins out in public are for everything other than the shit bins.
This needs to be done intelligently and specifically – plastic wrap greatly increases the shelf life of products like cucumber and broccoli.
I agree about plastic bags for carrots though, that can fuck off forever. Potatoes too.
That’s the only logical next step after phasing out the “free” plastic bags. They already sell these special bags for loose fruit and veg.
Let’s just hope they will put more scales in the aisles otherwise it will be another chance to be stuck in a queue.
I honestly can’t think of anything worse than the average member of the public handling my fruit before I have to eat it. It very unhygienic and would put me off eating it. It’s not as bad for veg which is going to be cooked but we definitely shouldn’t be forced to buy loose fruit.
“potential ban” , “government considers”
It would be a great change but we’re not there yet
I’ve started recycling my soft plastics at the local CoOp and almost all of it is fresh food wrappers – it’s shocking how much we still create even though a lot of our shop is at a greengrocers with paper bags.