One of the most talked about issues this year has been over our use of plastics. Highlighted by Sir David Attenborough in the second series of Blue Planet on the BBC, it has made consumers and governments alike address the materials we use for the packaging of food and drink, and much more besides.

In a special article for the KM Group, Alan Harvey, head of faculty for horticulture at Hadlow College, looks at the issues involved and the challenges we face in altering our habits.

This year has seen a global crackdown on the use and production of plastics.

Following October’s vote by the European Parliament to ban single-use plastics in a bid to tackle pollution, there are demands from UK MEPs to adopt this move. Now, the search is on to seek viable alternatives to these plastics, the biggest scourge of oceans and landfill sites.

The debate on plastic is a complicated one to say the least. Undoubtedly, the high volume of plastic in the globe’s oceans is a threat to biodiversity and the natural world.

Viewers who tuned into the BBC’s Blue Planet will recall the extent in which seas of plastic endanger some of the world’s most precious wildlife.

But, as with every fair debate, there is another side to the argument which must be accounted for.

In terms of the food industry, there is a strong counterpoint for the use of plastic.

Some of the plastic used to house our food is atmosphere-controlling, lengthening shelf-life and protecting the quality of produce such as soft fruits. Without the use of plastic in some shape or form, food quality can be put at risk.

Here at Hadlow College, we are privy to many different sides to the argument. We work closely with fruit and vegetable growers and distributors, some of whom are involved in research collaborations and a variety of trials with our students, who are given critical input into influencing the quality and variety of produce on supermarket shelves.

As an organisation, we back the plea to reduce single-use plastic but also recognise that a goal to completely ban it will in itself lead to further problems.

It is crucial the plastic debate is treated transparently and carefully; particularly as its use and ‘need’ differs from one context to another. And these two viewpoints must be considered in equal measure to arrive at a positive solution for everyone’s benefit.

In this debate however, one of the largest challenges is actually the habits of the everyday consumer, their behaviour in the supermarket and their personal relationship with food. With this is mind, which solutions can be employed to temper the consumer’s dependence on plastic packaging?

What do these look like and how could they change the way food is sold to consumers?

Much of the packaging used in supermarkets is Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP), which allows a careful blend of gases to be used to preserve the shelf life of many fresh products such as fruits, vegetables, salads and meat.

Reducing the use of this type of packaging would add a greater pressure on growers, distributors and supermarkets to supply fresh produce into supermarkets. With the use of MAP, shelf life may be increased to several days. Without this packaging, many products would quickly deteriorate in the home, resulting in more trips to the supermarket.

This presents the key factor in addressing the average consumer’s reliance on single-use plastics; time and budget.

A significant portion of the UK’s overall population simply does not have the spare cash to let food go to waste. And this reality is a complex element of the ‘plastic debate’ which necessitates consideration.

Thankfully, there are solutions to alleviate this problem, without incurring costs to the consumer or the environment.

One example is changing the consumer’s dependency on fruit and veg plastic bags in the supermarkets.

The rolls of plastic bags used by the consumer to carry a single vegetable or piece of fruit need to be removed and replaced with paper bags for those consumers who wish to use them. Once the consumer is at home, they can store produce in a suitable container to keep the food protected.

This raises the idea of whether paper bags can be offered as main shopping bags, USA-style.

There is, however, a minor impracticality that will burden consumers. We live in a country blessed with an unpredictable maritime climate. Consumers who walk or rely on public transport would quickly find rain-deteriorated paper bags the bane of their shopping trip. Again, it is another uncomfortable reality which will not go away.

Reusable shopping bags are therefore more long-lasting, but there needs to be a stronger drive towards getting consumers to use them – a wider cultural change to lessen their dependence on these plastic bags and see the benefits of reusable ones.

When food shopping, it is natural for consumers to want the best value for their money. If plastic packaging protects food from wilting and is easy to store, then they will continue to behave in this way unless presented with alternative options.

One answer to the issue might be to eat more seasonable produce from the UK, which may have a longer shelf life than prepared green beans from Kenya, for example. There is obviously a compelling argument to reduce our dependence on foreign produce, but from February to April UK supermarket shelves would be lacking in many fruits and vegetables that we now take for granted.

All of this would demand quite an attitude and lifestyle shift on the part of many consumers to adapt their home-cooking and eating methods to the idea of both short shelf life and seasonable products. If people want to buy unseasonal fruit and vegetables (strawberries in winter) they will need to be MAP-packaged.

This leads to another area which is high in plastic use - prepared fruit. A box of prepared melon, for example, would very quickly deteriorate without the MAP packaging, so greater emphasis would need to be placed on the consumer buying a whole melon and preparing it at home to reduce the use of the packaging. These kinds of simple behaviour changes will go a long way to shift the consumer’s reliance on plastic packaging.

Further research to develop the use of biodegradable plastics is essential. The biggest challenge being that the plastic is to prevent the prepared fruit and salad from biodegrading, therefore it needs to last long enough to hold the already biodegrading fresh produce.

Although it will be a long and challenging road to conditioning people to live without single-use plastic, as consumers and food producers it is our responsibility to identify the right solutions for the benefit of all walks of life. As the saying goes, there is more strength in numbers. As long as there is a shared commitment between consumers and the entire food supply chain, the debate on plastics might one day reach its resolution.