New laws to transport vegetables in plastic containers

Irangika Range

The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) will draft new laws to ensure the transportation of vegetables in plastic containers.

Co-operatives and Internal Trade Minister Johnston Fernando told the Daily News that the traditional transport system using gunny bags and poly sacks to pack vegetable cause immense wastage", the Minister said.

New laws and regulations are required to ensure the use of plastic containers for vegetable and fruit transportation, he said.

The Minister said that 30-40 percent of vegetables and fruits are wasted due to the use of gunny and poly bags."Vegetables and fruits are crammed into gunny bags. Then, traders load these bags into lorries resulting in high wastage," he said.

It is necessary to introduce proper system to minimize wastage when transporting vegetables.

Using unproductive methods for transportation results in losses worth hundreds of millions of rupees and finally consumers have to bear up unnecessary price increases. "If we use plastic containers for packing of fruits and vegetables for transportation to the market, this would solve this problem," the Minister said.