. . . and he backs Mail’s call for bottle deposit scheme that would slash litter

PRINCE Charles last night backed the Mail’s call for a deposit and return scheme on plastic bottles and drinks cans, as it was claimed it would cut the number dumped as litter by more than a million a day.

Charles said he had ‘tried hard’ to cut the use of plastic bottles in the royal households.

‘I was the first one to start a skip at Buckingham Palace,’ he told ITV News.

‘I have been trying to get the point across that what we really need to look at very rapidly is what they’ve been doing in Sweden for 2 years and Germany for 1 years and other countries in Europe – a deposit scheme on plastic bottles.

‘That has worked brilliantly in those countries which have introduced it.’

The Daily Mail has led the way in calling for a decrease in the use of plastics, running a successful eight-year campaign to introduce a p charge for the use of carrier bags which has seen an 8 per cent slump in their use.

Experts say that adding a small fee – around 1 p – to plastic bottles and drinks cans would help clean up the streets, parks, beaches and the seas.

Research by waste consultant company Eunomia suggest the number of plastic bottles that end up as litter would come down by 700,000 per day –2 million a year – across the country.

At the same time, the number of cans would fall by 600,000 a day, or 220 million a year.