Wood, cardboard, and plastic ........

[Stinky The Clown]

I'm talking about the packaging for produce.

It used to be in wood.

Then they used cardboard.

Now its plastic.

And it has been my observation that plastic is a good thing.

Plstic, molded to be like a huge egg crate and able to coddle one piece of fruit in its own little cell. The fruit arrives fresher and less bruised.

Veggies are packed in plastic clamshells. Things like tomatoes are packaged in large clamshells and layered only two or three deep. Each veggie is exposed to less weight than they were when they were just loose in a box, and were eight, ten, or even more deep.

All in all, it sees to me that we're getting fresher fruits and veggies, of better quality, and even of superior breeding, where we once got styrofoam tomatoes or clay replicas of peaches or pears.

I don't know if they're using it, but there are vegetable-based plastics (cellulose-based, actually) that can degrade much like paper can.

[murphymom]

1. The corn plastic is interesting

I think Wild Oats is using it in their deli counter stuff and some of Newman's Own products are in it. NatureWorks, one of the companies that makes it, is a subsidiary of Cargill. (www.natureworksllc.com) The only problem I've read about with it is that it isn't as heat-stable as conventional oil-based plastic.

One of the things about produce being packed "retail-ready" at the source is that there is significantly less handling in transit. This has made a major difference in "shrink".