h/t: Daily Mail:
These bananas, intended to be sold at convenience stores and gas stations, are wrapped in bags containing "Controlled Ripening Technology" (some sort of ethylene inhibitor?) that is said to extend shelf life up to 6 days. The bananas are placed in their bags while green and ripen more slowly than those piled on the shelf. They're being marketed as 'Natural Energy Snack on the Go,' for a U.S. cost of $1 each. 7-Eleven enthusiastically adopted these single serving bananas in thousands of stores last year due to customer disdain for brown bananas and the fewer (carbon/cost-intensive) deliveries that are required to stock produce with an extended shelf life.
It's also been pointed out that getting fresh, (culturally?)-appealing produce into quickie marts and bodegas in inner cities and isolated small towns might do more good alleviating food deserts than it does harm in generating extra trash.
Great.
ReplyDeleteAs I once heard someone tell a friend with suicidal tendencies, "never apply a permanent solution to a temporary problem." Plastic is permanent.