How plastic can save the planet

It’s one of those Facebook posts that pops up as regularly as pimples once did on my teenaged nose. Why on Earth do supermarkets wrap these cucumbers/apples/oranges zucchinis in plastic when they have perfectly good skin?

The question’s rhetorical, of course. We all know the answer. Supermarkets are stupid and don’t care about the planet. They don’t realise that cucumbers already have skin. And did we mention that they’re stupid?

It feels pretty good, being smarter than a supermarket. So the posts and high-fiving comments keep coming.

But supermarkets aren’t stupid, of course (although the

Pak ’n Save Stick Man doesn’t always come across as Mensa material). They’re smart, analytical and know how to run an efficient supply chain.

And that’s where the plastic wrap comes in. Freakonomics contributor James McWilliams looked at the case for plastic wrapped apples (apples travel a lot further in the United States) and found that contrary to what you’d expect, it’s better for the planet when you wrap some fruit and vegetables in plastic, not worse.

It’s all about waste. Supermarkets wrap some produce in plastic so it lasts longer and doesn’t spoil.

That means less is thrown away, less needs to be stored in energy-hungry chillers, less needs to be stored in warehouses or transported around the country in trucks and less needs to be grown — using less water, less land and, in the case of hothouse vegetables, less energy.

Yes, the plastic takes energy to make, costs money and needs to be responsibly disposed of, but overall, McWilliams says, you’re better off with the plastic than without it. So are plasticwrapped cucumbers likely to hang in there on our supermarket shelves, silently putting up with the Facebook haters safe in the knowledge the planet is the winner?

Not a chance. Supermarkets aren’t there to save the planet. They’re there to deliver shareholder value by selling us food. And if that means keeping the Facebook commenters happy by appearing to be environmentally friendly, then they will.

It’s why plastic bags have gone, and more energy intensive paper bags are in. It’s why drinking straws (just 0.025 per cent of ocean plastics) are out, but cigarettes — the most commonly found plastic-containing rubbish item in the ocean — smoulder on (for the meantime).

It’s why fish is just fine, even though the vast bulk of ocean plastics are fishing gear abandoned while fishing for, you know, fish.

Supermarkets aren’t stupid. We are. They’re just meeting the market.

Supermarkets aren’t there to save the planet. They’re there to deliver shareholder value by selling us food.