The Council of State annuls the decree banning plastic packaging for fruits and vegetables

by time news

Many unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables could no longer be sold in plastic packaging since January 1, 2022.

Less than a year after the entry into force of the ban on plastic packaging around certain fruits and vegetables, they could make their comeback: the Council of State on Friday canceled the implementing decree, which it considers “illegal», and asked the State to write a new text. Since January 1, 2022, many unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables, such as courgettes, peppers, cucumbers, apples, pears or oranges, could no longer be sold in plastic packaging. The implementing decree for this measure was published in October 2021 and notably set tolerances for plastic packaging until 2026 for the most fragile such as red fruits.

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It is this progressive calendar which has been deemed illegal by the highest administrative body, seized in particular by the plastics manufacturers. For her, the State has exceeded the mandate that had been set for it under the law on the fight against waste and the circular economy. The latter hadentrusted the government with the task of listing the only fruits and vegetables presenting a risk of deterioration if they were sold in bulk, in order to exempt them from the ban on plastic packaging in a permanent way“Explains the Council of State in a press release. However, in the implementing decree, the government not only “included in its list of fruits and vegetables not necessarily presenting a risk of spoilage“but has in addition”fixed, for each of these fruits and vegetables, the period during which they could continue to be sold in plastic packaging after January 1, 2022“, indicates the Council of State.

Consequently, “Decree No. 2021-1318 of October 8, 2021 relating to the obligation to present for sale unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables without packaging composed wholly or partly of plastic material is canceled“, concludes the Council of State, following in this the opinion of the public rapporteur delivered on November 14. The state “will have to redefine a list by decree to meet the mission entrusted to it by law“, is it added. He will also have to pay the sum of 2,000 euros to the Alliance Plasturgie & Composites union of the future, to the Polyvia union, to the French Federation of fruit, vegetable and horticultural cooperation (Felcoop) and to the interprofessional association of fresh fruits and vegetables.

SEE ALSO – The cardboard factories are running at full speed to produce the new recyclable packaging for fruits and vegetables

Before this ban came into force, 37% of fruit and vegetables in France were sold in plastic packaging. The ban on this packaging, targeting around thirty of them, was to “help avoid more than a billion unnecessary plastic packaging every year“, had indicated last year the government. President Emmanuel Macron had put forward in September 2021 the fact that France would be “the first country to no longer have plastic around (its) fruits and vegetables“, promising a”real revolution».

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