France - The Next Eco-Friendly Nation

Single use plastics are all around us, from the plastic bottles to hold our water and the utensils we use to eat our local takeout. They are bad for the environment but one nation is determined to make a little more of a difference. In France, starting January of 2022 they are banning the plastic packaging of fruits and vegetables.

The current estimation is that 37% of fruits and vegetables are sold with plastic packaging. With this plastic banning, there will be a prevention of more than one billion useless packaging items per year. That is only just from one step in this process, but that's not all. 

This law was first introduced in February of 2020 but now the coronavirus has lowered it’s intensity around the world, France felt as though they could really make a difference. In this law, “the government published a list of about 30 fruits and vegetables that will have to be sold without plastic packaging from January 1[st], (CNN).  

This isn’t the only thing that France is doing, just this past January they have also banned the usage of plastic cups, and utensils. 

Both these new bans come out of a bigger law which is called the Energy Transition for Green Growth Act.  As a whole it “aims to promote a ‘circular economy’... It would set a 2040 target to phase out all single-use plastics, with the goal of recycling 100 percent of plastics by 2025,” (France 24). 

This is definitely something that’ll be beneficial for the planet overall. Hopefully,  many other nations will see the positive aspects of France’s new law and want one similar for their own nations.

To avoid the usage of plastic bottles, “water fountains will become mandatory in public buildings,” (MMM) at the beginning of 2022. Many, “local ministers stipulate that in three years’ time, 50 percent of the material used to procure such items will have to be organic and compostable, (SciAlert)”. Even by 2025 it will most likely rise to 60%. Which is for cutlery being used in health and corrections facilities, trains and even airports. The exemptions will expire in July 2021 which will then flow into the overall ban of these kinds of cutlery products.

It is nice to see one country stand up and really see what is happening to our planet. While actively trying to do something about it as a whole.