To mark International Composting Awareness Week, LOCCAL is initiating community-driven campaign addressing the continuing problem of fruit stickers in the food system.  

Why do we still have fruit stickers?

‘Price Look-Up’ (PLU) stickers are used to help retailers identify produce at check-out as stated by Barcodes Australia, though discussions have become somewhat obfuscated in regard to stakeholder interests, with some brand-conscious and market-dominating producers seeking to prevent what they see as unfair competition by keeping stickers on their fruit. Finger-pointing, foot-dragging and international regulatory blame-games have ensued with little progress despite years of awareness around the issues at stake. Some producers claim to be ready to bring compostable stickers to market, in a bid to keep their labels on every individual item of fruit they send to the market.  

According to Woolworths their “Scan Assist” technology now used at supermarkets utilizes machine learning models to track produce based on size, shape, colour and human interaction with the model, to identify products accurately. 

Small Stickers, Big Problems

With the little benefit they may bring, fruit stickers have an enormous side-effect that even the commercial composters are enable to defend against. The plastics break down into microplastic particles, small enough to be absorbed by plants and ingested by people. They do not disappear. Furthermore, the adhesives and inks are designed to be waterproof and there is still concern given little clarity about which components proposed in new types of packaging do or do not contain PFAS. 

Since adding food waste into the kerbside collection services, compost from commercial facitlities has been found to contain high proportions of polypropylene and other microplastics (also from ‘compostable bags’) both in Australia (x2) and internationally. 

Despite ambitious promises from the equipment suppliers, screening technology at Australian compost facilities is not able to separate plastics out of feedstock adequately, to the point where manual labour is still a major input during sorting. The national commercial composting industry association, AORA, is thus also calling for bans on plastic labels amongst other problematic items. 

South Australia is the first Australian state to ban non-compostable fruit stickers from 1 September 2025 though the waters remain murky, especially given the need to harmonise regulation at state-level throughout Australia. 

LOCCAL is thus promoting a ban on fruit stickers, in the face of the very slow progress, the confusion around an increasing number of new materials claiming to be compostable, as we saw with compostable bin liners and drink cups, and a regulatory framework that is in catchup-mode when it comes to identifying safe materials and thresholds. 

So Let’s #SayNoToFruitStickers!

Our network of composters is rolling out the #SayNoToFruitStickers campaign on social media, and our hope is that this will snowball to demonstrate how many stakeholders are tired of trying to deal with big industry-created problems that are detrimental to human and soil-health. 

So please, make a post, use the #SayNoToFruitStickers hashtag and mention @LOCCAL to build critical mass!