Thai supermarket wraps food in banana leaves instead of plastic

Some supermarkets have started wrapping some products in banana leaves because they are sturdy and biodegradable

Spotted: To cut the use of plastic, Rimping supermarket in Changmai, Thailand, has turned to wrapping some food products in banana leaves. The banana leaf packages are tied with a thin piece of bamboo. In Vietnam, The Ho Chi Minh City branch of Lotte Mart has begun wrapping vegetables in the leaves and hopes to expand the practice to other foods and stores.

So, why banana leaves? As globalcitizen.org explains, banana trees are easy to find in Thailand, and some can produce leaves as long as 3 metres. The leaves’ sturdiness also makes them a great candidate for packaging fast-selling fresh produce — “because they’re biodegradable, they can’t sit on the shelf for months.”

Other stores in Vietnam are embracing a variety of green packaging options. Lotte Mart also uses boxes made of sugarcane waste and wraps eggs in paper instead of plastic, while Big C offers biodegradable shopping bags made from corn powder.