Fruit stickers are annoying and bad for the environment. So why did an Australian ban come unstuck?

Sticking around a little longer … non-plastic alternatives such as compostable stickers and labels lasered on to fruit skin are not yet available at commercial scale. Photograph: Ellen Smith/The Guardian

Fruit stickers may be small but they can be mighty annoying.

Each year 5.62bn plastic labels are picked off fruit and vegetables in Australia, data shows. Those that are not accidentally eaten, washed down the sink or buried in compost, usually end up in landfill, adding about 110 tonnes of plastic to the pile.