At a time when many of us are trying to reduce the amount of plastic packaging we consume, the supermarkets are incentivising us to do the opposite.
That’s the disturbing finding of a recent audit of supermarket’s plastic use released last week.
Undertaken by the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) and the Boomerang Alliance, the audit found that supermarkets are providing ‘perverse incentives’ for consumers to take home more plastic by charging more for loose fruit and vegetables compared with plastic-wrapped produce.
For example, have you noticed that the per kilo price of loose potatoes is about 50 per cent higher than bagged ones?
Oranges and carrots are 40 per cent dearer, onions 30 per cent, and apples eight per cent.
When you calculate the extra cost to buy unpackaged fruit and vegetables over the course of the year, it works out to be about $155 for the average family.
Cost of living
At a time when cost-of-living pressures are already smashing family budgets, having to essentially pay the equivalent of an extra weekly shop in order to reduce waste is a tall order.
‘Woolworths, Coles and Aldi are charging more for loose fruit and vegetables than plastic wrapped produce more than 70 per cent of the time, and sometimes the price difference is startling,’ AMCS’s plastics campaign manager, Cip Hamilton said.
‘In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, shoppers should not be penalised for buying in smaller quantities and avoiding plastic and trying to reduce food waste.’
The supermarkets say the price discrepancy reflects the fact that it is cheaper for them to sell larger volumes of pre-packaged goods than individual pieces.
But AMCS says that this not only incentivises plastic use, but also encourages food wastage.
Australians waste 7.6 million tonnes of food each year – or 312 kg per person – and 70 per cent of this food is edible, according to AMCS and the Boomerang Alliance.
Bizarrely, Woolworths’ own food rescue charity, OzHarverst, encourages consumers to buy loose fruit and vegetables to avoid food waste, while the supermarket’s own pricing discourages it.
Plastic does not improve shelf life
The claim that plastic packaging improves shelf life has now been completely debunked, with a UK report by charity Waste and Resources Action Programme finding that plastic wrapping had ‘no or little meaningful effect on extending the life of fresh produce’.
AMCS and the Boomerang Alliance are demanding that the federal government step in and force the supermarket giants to behave responsibly.
‘The results of the 2024 audit should hasten promised action to regulate plastic producers at the Australian environment ministers’ meeting in December,’ the Alliance’s Jeff Angel said.
‘We need to see real reductions in plastic packaging, more recycled content and reuse options.’
The amount of land-based plastic pollution will double by 2040 at the current rate.
The amount of plastics entering the world’s oceans is set to triple in that time, with plastic pollution on track to surpass the weight of all the world’s fish within 30 years.
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