Less than a year after their ban, plastic packaging could make their reappearance around the fruits and vegetables on the stalls of supermarkets.
by Stéphane Mandard
Emmanuel Macron had presented the measure as a “real revolution”. The ace. Less than a year after their ban, plastic packaging could reappear around fruits and vegetables on supermarket stalls. In a judgment rendered Friday, December 9, the Council of State canceled the decree implementing the law, deeming a provision of the text “illegal”.
Lighthouse measurement of the plastic antipollution of the government provided for in the law relating to the fight against waste and the circular economy of 2020, the prohibition of the sale of fresh fruits and vegetables in plastic packaging had entered In force on 1 er January 2022. The legislator, however, provided for exceptions, especially for fruits and vegetables that can deteriorate when they are selling in bulk, leaving the government to identify them.
Also, in a decree of October 8, 2021, the government established a list of around forty fruits and vegetables that can still be sold under plastic packaging, specifying for everyone until they can be Sold with this packaging. It is this list, challenged before the Council of State by plastics and fruits and vegetable professionals, which was deemed “illegal” by the highest administrative jurisdiction.
“redefine a list “
Using industrialists’ arguments, the Council of State considered that the government had exceeded its powers by not limiting itself to fixing a list of definitively exempted fruits and vegetables (due to the risk of deterioration during Their bulk sale) as provided for in the law, but by adding a temporal limit in the decree. In order to allow fruit and vegetable producers to find plastic replacement solutions, the attacked decree provided for progressive prohibitions with a calendar of derogations ending on June 30, 2023 for cherry tomatoes, green beans or peaches, As of December 31, 2024 for endives, mushrooms or cherries, and even until June 30, 2026 for red fruits (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc.)
“The law is clear, recalls the administrative judge, she entrusted to the government the task of listing the only fruits and vegetables presenting a risk of deterioration if they were sold in bulk, in order to exempt them from the prohibition of ‘Plastic packaging permanently. “Now, he continues,” the government has included in its list of fruits and vegetables that do not necessarily have a risk of deterioration, and has fixed, for each of these fruits and vegetables, the period during the period which they could continue to be sold under plastic packaging after the 1 er January 2022 “. Also, the Council of State invites the government to take a new decree in order to “redefine a list”.
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