Sir, – Some kinds of plastic are probably unavoidable, but others seem to be imposed on consumers solely for the convenience of wholesalers and retailers without conferring any benefit on us.
An example of this is the sticker placed on certain varieties of apple (though not all of them) to denote the variety and size of the fruit and hence the price.
These stickers may shave one or two seconds off our transit time through the supermarket checkout, but at a high cost to the environment.
While the material used to make the stickers is apparently harmless to humans who ingest them, they are not recyclable. Ingested or not, therefore, the stickers will probably make their way into our oceans, whose inhabitants are already choking on plastic waste.
If some distributors can dispense with the stickers, can others not follow suit? In the meantime, maybe we shoppers should vote with our wallets and only buy apples that are sticker-free. – Yours, etc,
NUALA McLOUGHLIN,
Ratoath, Co Meath.