I agree, it is a scourge, I peel them off before I wash or eat them, some are really sticky, others come off easily. I look at my neighbors veggie garden and I see so many of them. I have tried to teach my husband with only minor success, so I am constantly picking them out of our compost pile. Like people putting down cardboard for weeds, and leaving on the plastic tape, it only takes a second to rip off the tape. And this seems minor compared to all the plastic that is degrading on the side of the road into fine particles.
I've detested these pests in my garden for years. I try to keep them out, but they keep coming in. Sadly, I've given this a lot of thought and it seems one of the most effective ways to treat this scourge would be to litigate. How can you call an apple 'organic' when it's had a wad of glue stuck on it for weeks?
1
I eat organic, and I always peel off those stickers BEFORE I peel/eat/cook. I can't figure out all these commenters and others whose stickers end up in the compost. Not that I'd worry much if a sticker did surface in the garden; that it managed that trick after a year in my compost pile means that it is really biodegradable and won't contaminate my garlic. I'd rather obsess about the weeds, the late planting date this spring, the groundhog......
1
It's more than a compost issue. Plastic fruit and vegetable stickers are also one of the few things that survive the sewage treatment process at Deer Island, which the wastewater from 43 communities in Massachusetts. Organics put down a residential food grinder become fuel for the treatment plant and Class A fertilizer--but the stickers float out into Massachusetts Bay with the cleaned effluent. A paper or biodegradable option would be welcome.
Andreae Downs, Executive Director, Wastewater Advisory Committee to the MWRA
Andreae Downs, Executive Director, Wastewater Advisory Committee to the MWRA
6
The plastic stickers are really annoying, surfacing years later in my garden. Can't they made of paper?
4
The stickers on N. American fruits & vegetables has driven me crazy for years: a pointless waste of resources, and - as this great article points out - a challenge for responsible waste disposable. Food packagers / distributors should simply dispense with the stickers altogether -- as they do in most French supermarkets for example. The stickers are simply unnecessary.
9
I think this belongs in the "First World Problems" category.
4
Seems to me I heard a while ago that "they" are developing an alternative non-sticker that is sprayed on. Sounds good. As easy as it is to remove the stickers, and I always do because it's so fast though boring, obviously loads of people just can't be bothered. Cretins!
2
A lot of the stickers have such strong glue that it's a struggle to get them off, and bananas often have two. Dealing with stickers is one of the most frustrating things about bagging food waste for compost.
4
Those 'Bingo card' sheets sound like a fine idea, but why limit their worth to bags of compost? Perhaps enough filled pages could be redeemed for some other, useful things, such as a transit pass, a ferry fare (no small consideration in that neck of the woods) or some prepaid parking meter time, or some food item? Now I just hope I haven't offended the carbon-footprint fanatics and the fitness freaks ...
1
Require biodegradable stickers.
28
I always remove the stickers and put them in the landfill bin before putting the fruit/veg skins in the compostables bin for curbside collection. It's easy.
7
If there are worms in the composter, won't they eat the stickers, too, along with other shredded paper?
3
Mine don't. They eat just about anything else I put in there, though, but aren't the stickers vinyl? Plastic can be made from hemp oil. Just sayin'...
1
Lynn Mason, my worms don't eat the stickers. Maybe they need to be retrained?
1
No. They are often plastic.
1
Whatever happened to laser-etched fruit that two years ago was the next wave of the future?
6
Yea, where is it?? If you peel the sticker off of a fairly ripe pear, for instance...it will take the skin off wit it and then you will have to eat the pear very soon. Bring it on. Just don't make it with poisonous dye.
3
I have seen beautiful "quilts" made from the left over twisty wires that bind many vegetables (ICA in Boston). I await similar art from those stickers. I don't mind them in my compost bin, and than in my garden beds. But at the moment, the bin is under 2-3 feet of Snow........
2
Those stickers are a pain to all us composter. Is there a technological solution?
3
There is an artist here in Colorado that creates artwork with fruit stickers. I usually peel mine off, place on a sheet of waxed paper and when I accumulate a good amount send them off to him. Makes me feel a little better about it, at least. (Stickerman, Erie, CO - stickermanproduceart)
3
If you compost a lot, as I do, those stickers are a pain. The garden was littered with them, from years old compost. We remove every single on of them now before it goes into the bin.
8
Initial cost might be appreciable, but laser branding might be cheaper in the long run, considering the complexity of the machines that stick the stickers to the fruit, and the cost of handling the stickers.
3
I take my kitchen scraps, such as banana peels, and so forth, and just dig a hole in my garden and bury them. I have been doing this for over twenty-five years. Each year I figure I put in around two fifty-five gallon drums worth. I do not worry about the stickers or other odds and ends.
2
Thats fine enough but some of us compost and then use the resulting earth in our gardens where they always turn up eventually, often in large numbers.
One more reason to go to your farmers markets.
16
Unless you happen to like vegetable gardening. $5 Brandywine tomato, anyone?
1
Lucky for my home-composting operation, my daughter is obsessed with those dang stickers and peels them off of our produce. Unfortunately, she they sticks them randomly around the house and we have to track them down and dispose of them. Mercifully, our homegrown and farmer's market produce does not come with them.
5
Tell your daughter that there's an old lady in Ohio that sometimes puts them on her cell phone or laptop computer. Also, I've been composting for roughly 30 years, and I hate finding them in flower beds etc., but at least compost happens.
1
Those stickers take longer to degrade than an entire squirrel carcass, including the long bones and skull. I've never understood why we waste this kind of indestructibility on something that's not infrastructure.
21
I doubt of they degrade at all as they are plastic.
1
Can they not be made of paper that degrades?
21
I understand not, because paper that degrades will not survive the washing and misting the produce is subject to.
I just remove the little buggers and put them in my trash.
I just remove the little buggers and put them in my trash.
2
A few stickers in your compost is nothing to be concerned about. I once purchased a truckload of compost from an operation situated next to the municipal dump. There was a surprising amount of non-rotting junk in there. I particularly remember a toothbrush.
Needless to say, I never purchased from them again.
Needless to say, I never purchased from them again.
7
In NJ, most of the produce purchased at local farmers markets does not have stickers. In addition of course, it is more eco-friendly and sustainable to buy local.
9
Tough to get those locally-grown fruits and veggies in January and February.
10
Snow peas?
6
This is really considered a big problem? I've never found one of those stickers that couldn't be removed with ease. And without bruising the fruit...
5
But you expect people to be sufficiently conscientious and to have enough energy to remove the stickers. I wouldn't be surprised to learn people eat the stickers, rather than peel them off.
2
Yeah, I'm not getting this "problem". I peel off the sticker before I prepare or eat the fruit or vegetable.
I have 19 acres, and I'm not about to look that closely for stickers in compost.
I have 19 acres, and I'm not about to look that closely for stickers in compost.
2
I hate finding these stickers in my compost pile or in my worm castings. To reduce my disappointments in the soil amendments, I remove them from the fruit before I eat them. If I do remove the stickers and then let them ripen, they bruise, especially the pears. Not the apples, as they don't ripen and are kept in the fridge, nor the bananas or the kiwi, but yes the pears which I love dearly. For me, a cornstarch sticky label would be not so helpful as it would not compost nor be eaten by the worms. I really don't like these things. Fruit has been sold without them and the businesses survived. We don't need these stickers!
Those stickers are completely unnecessary, and it's impossible to remove them without bruising the fruit.
18
I imagine there is some government labeling regulation that requires the labeling of all foods and where they came from, whether they are organic or not.
1
1) Is there no way for someone to come up with inked-on labelling, whereby nothing but INK is pressed onto the outer layer of the fruit/vegetable?
2) I've actually made some very colorful, appealing little refrigerator displays, by simply taking a bunch of these stickers and just sticking them randomly onto pieces of paper...
2) I've actually made some very colorful, appealing little refrigerator displays, by simply taking a bunch of these stickers and just sticking them randomly onto pieces of paper...
2
I'm not eager to eat ink, thank you.
5
You have been eating ink on your meat for a hundred years.
3
Unless you are a vegetarian, you likely consume the ink from the meat inspection stamps. Anyhow, I was once told the stamps use grape juice.
3
From my micro standpoint: I don't sweat it. I also don't sweat the bit of paper stapled to a string on a teabag.
Now, whomever comes up with a biodegradable "sticker replacement"........
Now, whomever comes up with a biodegradable "sticker replacement"........
5
I can see why stores need to distinguish organic fruit versus non-organic fruit , but the stickers should be made out of something biodegradable. Of course, plastics are one way to sequester carbon...
1
i compost them along with everything else. they shovel easily.
9