Refrigerator Fruit/Vegetable Bins
You can store whatever you want in these bins - I regularly use one of mine to store bottled drinks.

However, depending where the cold air outlet is in your fridge, placing relatively fragile items such as fruits and vegetables on the shelves could cause them to freeze or form ice crystals internally, damaging the item.

Things like bags of apples or oranges tend to take up a lot of shelf space, so a bin helps contain them a bit by forcing them to stack vertically more-so than a flat shelf would.

So, pay attention to where the air vent is and your fridge overall temperature, as well as what's next to the items - otherwise it's OK to store fruits and vegetables on the shelf.