Plastic's Tight Grip

 Like it or not plastic has a tight grip on how America eats. Without it  our produce along with meats and fish could go bad. We can get sick.Yet our addiction to plastic is deadly. IS there a happy medium for the future?

Regular contributor Kim Severson wrote about this very real problem in today's New York Times Food Wednesday Food section. The US alone [roduces the most with forty percent of it being plastic. The country also has a problem with food waste too. yet one cucumber rotting in a land fill is not as bad as plastic. Yet plasric helps in reducing food waste. Americans have a bad habit of buying too much and not eating or using what they buyThe average American family spends $1500 on produce yearly Not that much is eaten and it's thrown out.The Biden Administration is trying to reduce this. There is already a draft to create a strategy by 2030. Plastic has been protecting produce since th 1930's - for ninety years!It started with cellophane wrapping vegetables and fruits and keeping them fresh, to the plastic clamshells big in the 1980's and those popular bagged salads that arrived a decade later in the 1990's . The top trend now is converting the plastics to biogdegradable wrappings according Soren Bjorn chief executive officer at Driscolls' the company that produces all sorts of fruit.

Other countries are also tackling this, Spain has a plastic tax. France has a severely limited plastic wrapped produce. The Europan is also adding more restrictions to stop plastic consumption across Europe. Canada is trying to hammer out a plan that could eliminate plastic packaging of produce by ninety-five per cent by 2028. Here , companies and scientists are experimenting with new ways of combatting the overuse of plastic wraps. There are some possible alternatives. One is bags from trees. An Austrian company is employing birch and beechwood trees to create celllulose for paper bags.Other companies are creatng netting from trees that can decompose in a few weeks. Then there are the films from surprisingly orange and shrimp shells.Most fruits and veggies now have an edible coating made from plant based fatty acids. This is sprayed on cucumbers, avocados, and other produce. Clamshells are now being tackled with the classic plastic being replaced by cardboard. This will be good for the more fragile fruits and vegetables.

How can plastic wrap consumption be  lessened. It will takes laws and innovative ideas to do such.It can help in a small way of protecting the environment.,