Ironically, organic products are often packaged and labeled with plastic. But such unnecessary packaging and plastic stickers could be replaced by an innovative laser mark. Will it catch on?

Tomatoes in plastic tubs, cheese and coldcuts packed in plastic, shrink-wrapped organic cucumbers — a lot of plastic waste comes through our shopping carts.

But it doesn’t have to be that way: The Dutch company Eosta “engraves” its organic fruit and vegetable labels directly on the ware.

Under European Union regulation, organic products have to be specially labeled so that customers can distinguish them from conventional products. Yet this results in a bitter irony: Customers who seek to be more eco-friendly by buying organic end up getting their goods wrapped in additional plastic.

But through introduction of a laser mark, such plastic packaging could disappear.