"Not only can I not choose, I can only buy as many as the box contains!" Ms. Chen, a citizen who wanted to buy two kilograms of apples, was very puzzled. Several fruit stores near her home have been "upgraded", but buying fruit is more troublesome than before: many kinds of fruits are packed in plastic boxes, and you can only buy them by the box.

The reporter found that this is not an isolated case. Many fruit stores have begun to "dress" the fruits that were previously sold loose: sealing them with plastic wrap, putting them in plastic boxes, and putting them in plastic bags. While overpackaging, ordinary people also complain about the inconvenience of shopping. Why did the trend of fruit boxing start? What is the logic behind it? What means can be used to solve this phenomenon? The reporter conducted an investigation.

Phenomenon

Single-picked fruits are packed in boxes

In the "Baiguoxiang" fruit store in Sanyuanli, the salesperson picked up a bunch of grapes in his left hand, and used scissors in his right hand to cut off the wilted ones one by one, and finally put them into a disposable plastic box. Around him, layers of packaged kumquats, apples, etc. have been stacked.

Many fruits that ordinary people usually pick loosely are also packaged and packed into boxes. Although the Nanguo pear is marked at 7.5 yuan per catty, it has been wrapped in plastic wrap and packed in plastic boxes. Several customers picked up, looked at, and put them down one by one, but no one bought them. "They are all packed in boxes, and I can't choose them. I don't know if they are fresh!" said a customer. In the past, fruits like pears and apples were almost all sold in bulk. After customers picked them, they were weighed and paid. The quantity and quality were controlled by the customers themselves. Now the choice is much smaller. Take Nanguo pears as an example. There are seven or eight pears in a serving. If you can't eat them all at once, you can't buy less; if you want to buy more, you can only buy two servings, a total of 16.

Similar situations are more common in many chain fruit stores. The reporter visited Guoduomei Beitaipingqiao Store and Huayuan Road Store and found that most fruits such as apples, pears, citrus, kiwis, etc. were packaged, some were wrapped in plastic wrap, and some were packed in hard plastic boxes. There were relatively few loose fruits. The reporter counted and found that there were about four to five hundred boxes of various fruits sold in boxes in each fruit store.

Some consumers said that in the past, such packaged and boxed fruits were often sold online and other channels. "I went to the fruit store to buy fruits just to pick some fresh ones, but I found that many fruits in the store were also packaged and I couldn't choose them at all."

Exploring the cause

Why is the trend of selling fruits in boxes becoming more and more intense in order to stop losses and seek convenience?

A salesperson at a fresh food supermarket called "Fruit and Vegetable Good" in Chaoyang Beiyuan said that these fruits were purchased in bulk and then packed into plastic boxes after being transported to the store. "Packaged fruits look good and clean, and fruits like oranges and pears go bad quickly when they are in bulk."

"Fruit sellers are afraid that the fruits will go bad, this is the most critical reason!" Zhou Zheng (pseudonym), the owner of a fruit store, revealed to reporters that the main reason for fruit packaging is for merchants to stop losses: first, by packaging fruits, customers will not touch them back and forth like they do when picking loose fruits; second, packaging is one of the fruit preservation measures, which can extend the sales time.

The reporter noticed that the sales method of fruit packaging is mainly concentrated in the newly upgraded fresh fruit supermarkets and high-end supermarkets. In traditional vegetable markets and affordable supermarkets, a large number of fruits are often still sold in bulk.

Zhou Zheng explained: "There are also some boxed fruits. Because of the exquisite packaging, the price can also be raised, so merchants prefer to box them." The increase in packaging costs is inevitably included in the price of fruits; but some boxed fruits extend the sales time, and the freshness will inevitably be "discounted".

Solution

Reduction at the source

The convenience of merchants also brings greater negative impact to the environment: in the past, ordinary people bought fruits, at most, they bought another plastic bag; now, fruits are first covered with plastic wrap, then put into plastic boxes, and finally covered with a plastic bag, and the packaging waste generated has become a "three-piece set".

"About 8,000 to 9,000 disposable plastic boxes can be used in a month." The person in charge of a fruit store with an area of more than 100 square meters admitted that the cost of these disposable plastic boxes ranged from a few cents to a few dimes, and they were basically purchased online.

The reporter searched for "disposable plastic boxes for fruits" on Taobao, and there were countless various products. In one of the top three stores, a strawberry packaging box is hot-selling, with each box containing 600 boxes and a quoted price of 215 yuan. The monthly sales volume of this product reached 1,387 boxes, which means that 830,000 boxes of this packaging box were sold in one month. "The material of these plastic boxes is similar to that of mineral water bottles, and they are all non-degradable." The person in charge of this store said frankly that a large part of these plastic boxes were sold to many well-known fruit and fresh supermarkets.

"White pollution" has become a global problem. "Like disposable lunch boxes, most fruit plastic packaging is thrown away by ordinary people." Sheng Min, secretary-general of the Recycled Plastics Branch of the China Renewable Resources Recycling Association, said that in addition to reducing the amount at the source, there should also be reliable and effective recycling channels. If there is a relatively sound garbage classification system, plastic packaging will be more effectively utilized through recycling channels. For example, Europe mainly adopts mandatory policies by the government to subsidize the recycling and processing of renewable resources; while Japan cultivates the quality of the people and does a good job of garbage classification from the source.

Our reporter Cao Zheng