Why stickers on fruit

This bold future is ours for the taking, but only if we ban fruit stickers immediately. Do you think Will has a valid point or do you take a different view? Let us know in the comments below.

Enter the email address associated with your account, and we'll send you a link to reset your password. If an account was found for this email address, we've emailed you instructions to reset your password. Will Dunn. Will is the editor of New Statesman's regular policy supplement Spotlight. Or, how about? Save recipe. Orange and ginger rum babas with caramelised oranges and ginger. However, how many of us make the effort to find out how fresh the fruits really are and where did they come from?

Have you ever made the effort to read those little stickers that are stuck on store bought fruits? Many a times, you pick out an apple from the refrigerator and notice a sticker on the peal. You simply remove it, throw it in the bin and dive straight into eating it.

It is more common to find stickers on fruits that are bought from the grocery marts than the ones purchased from the local vegetable and fruit vendors. The sticker has a PLU code printed on it. This code does not only consist of a bar code for the ease of billing but also contains important information regarding how the fruit or vegetable was grown.

It is known as a "price lookup number". By carefully analyzing the sticker, you enable yourself to make judgments regarding the origin of the fruit. Was it genetically modified? Everything he puts in it breaks down, except for those plastic stickers. They reportedly do break down in a hotter, commercial compost, after about a week. But how many stickers would actually get there?

John worked out that about 5. But there have been some efforts to come up with alternatives. Fruit companies Zespri, Bostock and Yummy Fruit Co have all trialled industrial compostable stickers, and both Zespri and Bostock have made a permanent switch to them. Our country's biggest fruit sticker producer Jenkins Freshpac Systems has signalled that change is coming. General manager Jamie Lunam says,"a home compostable sticker has been in development for some time.

We have a target of but we're very hopeful a solution will be found before then. This change can't come any faster for waste warriors like John. Not that you would want too on purpose, but if you did there will be no harm in that. If you were baking an apple pie and forgot to remove the stickers, no big deal. The stickers are edible and controlled by the FDA. The stickers would only be harmful if the label printer that produced the stickers did not follow the FDA guidelines and regulations and printed on a material that is not FDA approved.