For the past few years, during the month of July, #PlasticFreeJuly has raised awareness about the overuse of plastic at all levels and encourage people to live without this type of polluting and environmentally harmful packaging.
You have surely gone to the supermarket and have tried to make a plastic-free or zero waste purchase, and it has been very complicated. In these large supermarkets, fruits and vegetables are often wrapped in plastic containers, plastic nets or have to be placed inside plastic bags – biodegradable or compostable nowaways – to transport them to the checkout line.
It’s clear to us that plastics should not be part of the future, but that we should move towards a culture based on returnable packaging or made of cardboard. For that reason, in our physical store we do not offer any plastic packaging, we have cardboard boxes for fruits or tomatoes and cloth bags to store the shopping.
Plastic free online shopping
At Terragust’s online store it’s the same, our shipping doesn’t involve plastics. When our delivery person knocks on your door, have a basket or bag ready to dump your purchase in, as we reuse our boxes over and over again.
Another thing that is more than usual at supermarkets is wrapping of things that don’t need it. More than once we have seen avocados wrapped or tomatoes in plastic boxes. As farmers, we can assure you that fruits and vegetables do not need plastic wrapping. Most of them have their own skin that already fulfills this function.
When it comes to lettuce, chard or aromatic herbs, which do not have a natural cover, it is enough to remove the ugly leaves or wash them well with water and lemon or a little food grade bleach.
Here we want to make a digression, and the fact that the products have to spend few hours in transport also helps to reduce their gas emissions and that they can be without packaging. For this reason, the consumption of local and proximity products is also fundamental for a sustainable future.
All in all, what we want to convey to you is that it’s possible to buy plastic-free fruits and vegetables and that, although this month is #PlasticFreeJuly, we should apply this philosophy all year round. Local product, KM0, proximity and without plastic packaging in July and all year round.