Food-grade plastics: bulk sales decline, bottles gain ground

On the shelves, plastic hasn't given up the fight. A survey conducted in 1.600 stores by the consumer associations Que Choisir Ensemble and No Plastic In My Sea describes a supermarket sector still saturated with single-use packaging, despite rhetoric and French regulations promising a significant reduction. On paper, some fresh fruits and vegetables are already supposed to be plastic-free. In reality, exceptions abound, and the transparent film continues to cling to the trays.

A striking statistic: the beverage aisle alone accounts for 40% of single-use plastics found in supermarkets. And while bottles are piling up like dominoes, sales in the sector are up 3,3% year-on-year. The message is clear: "ready-to-use, sealed, disposable" remains dominant, while bulk sales are declining. We were promised a turning point, but what we're seeing is simply a strengthening habit.

Drinks: the major project overflowing with shopping carts

Faced with this situation, researcher Nathalie Gontard, research director at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (IRADE), puts the ball back in the center. "Consumers buy what's offered to them. If there's no supply, there's no demand," she points out, calling on manufacturers and distributors to reduce packaging to the bare minimum. The idea isn't to make the customer feel guilty at the checkout, but to look at the upstream supply chain, where the formats, containers, and marketing of "convenience" are decided.

Because convenience comes at a cost, often invisible on the label. The researcher cites pre-prepared products, such as sliced ​​mushrooms or pre-cut melons, which she considers avoidable, and warns of the release of microplastics and nanoplastics, persistent pollutants. Beyond the environment, she believes that both consumers and the economy lose out, between increased waste and resources wasted on packaging that could be packaged less.

The battle over regulations, and especially over exceptions, remains. Associations contest what they consider overly broad exemptions, while some sectors defend them in the name of hygiene, spoilage, or preservation. Between the stated principle and on-the-shelf practices, France is moving forward in small steps, sometimes even backward, as a debate takes hold: reducing waste at the source, yes, but who is willing to change industrial habits and the shelf space that goes with them?