To Wrap Or to Not Wrap Cucumbers?
In light of increasing public pressure, retailers strive to remove plastic packaging as much as possible from fresh fruits and vegetables to reduce the environmental impacts along their supply chains. Plastic packaging, however, also has an important protective function, similar to the fruit's...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022-06-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2022.750199/full |
| _version_ | 1797868103710801920 |
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| author | Chandrima Shrivastava Chandrima Shrivastava Eleonora Crenna Seraina Schudel Kanaha Shoji Daniel Onwude Roland Hischier Thijs Defraeye |
| author_facet | Chandrima Shrivastava Chandrima Shrivastava Eleonora Crenna Seraina Schudel Kanaha Shoji Daniel Onwude Roland Hischier Thijs Defraeye |
| author_sort | Chandrima Shrivastava |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In light of increasing public pressure, retailers strive to remove plastic packaging as much as possible from fresh fruits and vegetables to reduce the environmental impacts along their supply chains. Plastic packaging, however, also has an important protective function, similar to the fruit's peel. For cucumbers transported from Spain and sold in Switzerland, our investigations in the form of a life cycle assessment study showed that the plastic wrapping has a rather low environmental impact (only about 1%) in comparison to the total environmental impacts of the fruit from grower to grocer. Hence, each cucumber that has to be thrown away has the equivalent environmental impact of 93 plastic cucumber wraps. We found that plastic wrapping protects the environment more by saving more cucumbers from spoilage than it harms the environment by the additional use of plastic. If, by using the plastic wrap, we reduce cucumber losses at retail only by 1.1%, its use already has a net environmental benefit. Currently, in the cucumber import supply chain from Spain to Switzerland, the use of plastic wrapping lowers the cucumber losses at retail by an estimated 4.8%; therefore, it makes sense to use it from an environmental perspective. The environmental benefit of food waste reduction due to plastic wrapping the cucumbers was found to be 4.9 times higher than the negative environmental impact due to the packaging itself. Alternative strategies to preserve fresh cucumbers without using plastic wrapping will have to compete with this challenging limit. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T23:50:45Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-d02a75b0bbed45ab9c38fd6022eb118a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2571-581X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T23:50:45Z |
| publishDate | 2022-06-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems |
| spelling | doaj.art-d02a75b0bbed45ab9c38fd6022eb118a2023-03-17T10:48:17ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems2571-581X2022-06-01610.3389/fsufs.2022.750199750199To Wrap Or to Not Wrap Cucumbers?Chandrima Shrivastava0Chandrima Shrivastava1Eleonora Crenna2Seraina Schudel3Kanaha Shoji4Daniel Onwude5Roland Hischier6Thijs Defraeye7Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles, St. Gallen, SwitzerlandARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research, University of Bern, Bern, SwitzerlandEmpa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Technology and Society Laboratory, St. Gallen, SwitzerlandEmpa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles, St. Gallen, SwitzerlandEmpa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles, St. Gallen, SwitzerlandEmpa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles, St. Gallen, SwitzerlandEmpa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Technology and Society Laboratory, St. Gallen, SwitzerlandEmpa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles, St. Gallen, SwitzerlandIn light of increasing public pressure, retailers strive to remove plastic packaging as much as possible from fresh fruits and vegetables to reduce the environmental impacts along their supply chains. Plastic packaging, however, also has an important protective function, similar to the fruit's peel. For cucumbers transported from Spain and sold in Switzerland, our investigations in the form of a life cycle assessment study showed that the plastic wrapping has a rather low environmental impact (only about 1%) in comparison to the total environmental impacts of the fruit from grower to grocer. Hence, each cucumber that has to be thrown away has the equivalent environmental impact of 93 plastic cucumber wraps. We found that plastic wrapping protects the environment more by saving more cucumbers from spoilage than it harms the environment by the additional use of plastic. If, by using the plastic wrap, we reduce cucumber losses at retail only by 1.1%, its use already has a net environmental benefit. Currently, in the cucumber import supply chain from Spain to Switzerland, the use of plastic wrapping lowers the cucumber losses at retail by an estimated 4.8%; therefore, it makes sense to use it from an environmental perspective. The environmental benefit of food waste reduction due to plastic wrapping the cucumbers was found to be 4.9 times higher than the negative environmental impact due to the packaging itself. Alternative strategies to preserve fresh cucumbers without using plastic wrapping will have to compete with this challenging limit.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2022.750199/fullfood packagingfood wastecucumberplasticlife cycle assessmentsupply chain |
| spellingShingle | Chandrima Shrivastava Chandrima Shrivastava Eleonora Crenna Seraina Schudel Kanaha Shoji Daniel Onwude Roland Hischier Thijs Defraeye To Wrap Or to Not Wrap Cucumbers? Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems food packaging food waste cucumber plastic life cycle assessment supply chain |
| title | To Wrap Or to Not Wrap Cucumbers? |
| title_full | To Wrap Or to Not Wrap Cucumbers? |
| title_fullStr | To Wrap Or to Not Wrap Cucumbers? |
| title_full_unstemmed | To Wrap Or to Not Wrap Cucumbers? |
| title_short | To Wrap Or to Not Wrap Cucumbers? |
| title_sort | to wrap or to not wrap cucumbers |
| topic | food packaging food waste cucumber plastic life cycle assessment supply chain |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2022.750199/full |
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