Guest Commentary written by

Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly is CEO of Emerald Packaging.

Californians care about reducing plastic waste. Growers, packers and food companies do too. 

That’s why many in the fresh produce industry and even their packaging suppliers supported California’s landmark packaging law — The Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (Senate Bill 54) — when it was introduced and signed in 2022.

The original goal of the law was simple: reduce waste and improve recycling without compromising food safety and affordability.

However, the latest version of the regulation, released in January by the state’s CalRecycle agency, puts those goals at risk by ignoring how food moves from farm to families. The revisions call for, essentially, a sweeping ban on plastics via the food supply chain by 2027.

As a packaging industry executive, I would like nothing more than to discover the magic bullet that gives us a realistic way to eliminate plastic in the food supply chain. I’ve been trying to do that for almost 25 years.

But the facts of the current supply chain can’t be wished away. And neglecting this reality will risk the health of Californians, while increasing food prices, limiting food selection and putting small businesses and family farmers out of operation.

Here’s why CalRecycle’s proposed ban is short-sighted: Most people only notice packaging when they open it at home. But what people don’t usually consider is that by then, it has already done nearly all its work.

Packaging protects fresh produce from bacteria, dirt and damage as it is harvested, cooled, shipped and stocked. It prevents cross-contamination, extends shelf life and thereby reduces food waste.

Fresh produce is alive and reactive to its environment even after it is picked. The science embedded in the package extends its life by letting oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, so packaging must comply with federal food safety laws, FDA food-contact standards and California regulations.

Absent packaging, study after study shows, food is thrown away — along with the water, fuel, labor and money used to produce it. 

More greenhouse gases are emitted from food waste than from the production of plastics, according to a 2017 study by the state of Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. The authors’ recommendation? Use plastic.

The produce industry constantly evaluates new materials, but most alternatives do not provide the same protection against contamination and spoilage as current packaging.

It may seem ironic, but plastics are still our most sustainable option. We are still decades away from finding other packaging that performs as well as plastic does when it comes to food safety and waste.

Compostable materials, for instance, can’t match the shelf-life function of plastics, and producing them at scale will also take a decade or more. Moreover, according to a recently released Canadian government study, compostables cost so much they’d increase grocery produce prices by 5-10%.

CalRecycle’s revisions to SB 54 ignore these facts in favor of a foolhardy and dangerous ethos that is a de facto ban on plastics: “If we mandate it, industry will follow.” 

This attitude passes the buck away from CalRecycle’s own limitations onto the backs of small businesses and family farmers. The problem is not that fresh produce packaging can’t be recycled. It’s that the recycling systems needed to handle these materials need major investment to get there.

The produce industry isn’t asking to junk the law. Instead, we’re asking that produce packages governed by federal rules or guidelines on safety and shelf-life extension be excluded from the recycling rates proposed by CalRecycle. Such exclusions have been part of other versions of the proposed regulations but were left out in the latest. 

We need time. Alternative technologies don’t exist yet.

Ironically, CalRecycle may end up taking a law designed to protect the environment and allow it instead to increase food waste and greenhouse emissions and reduce affordability. It’s time to create reality-based regulations instead of ones that put Californians at risk.