I agree. This is incredibly stupid. The amount of food waste that will result will far outbalance the minor environmental impact of packaging. All that food requires lots of plastic in it's production cycle.
Produce is mostly made out of natural gas and diesel, not plastic.
Those plants aren't going to fertilize themselves LOL.
As with most greenwashing announcements, the net result will be increased, not decreased, environmental damage. Burn more diesel planting and transporting food, make more fertilizer out of natgas, then wash it into rivers to cause algae blooms and dead zones...
The other environmental effect will be decreasing the amount of fresh produce poor people have access to, eventually resulting in higher profits for health care industries. Think of it like an investment in turning pain and suffering into profit.
People have done okay without plastic containers before, it will be okay, trust me. There are biodegradable containers that can be used instead of plastic ones.
Second, lots of incentives can be introduced to sell food about to go bad such as selling it cheaper or reuse it in different products such as juices for fruits and so on. The only limit here is creativity, really..
