Why common sense can save the planet

ON our front page today, and inside on pages six and seven, we publish horrifying photographs that vividly illustrate an ecological disaster in the making. They show just a handful of the British beaches scarred by plastic waste in a pollution crisis that grows worse every year.

Indeed, the Marine Conservation Society finds the amount of litter dumped or washed ashore on 339 beaches has risen by 10 per cent in just 12 months, with nearly 1,000 items for every 100 metres of English coast – and single-use plastics often to blame.

Meanwhile, the plastic pollution we can’t see – the trillions of toxic microbeads and other hazardous waste polluting the oceans – wreaks untold damage, harming sea creatures and entering the food chain.

Yet with a little imagination and common sense, disaster can be easily avoided – as this paper proved with its hugely successful campaigns against microbeads and singleuse supermarket plastic bags.

This is why the Mail warmly welcomes the move by the Co-op and Iceland supermarket chains to back our call for a deposit-andreturn scheme for plastic bottles.

It is initiatives such as these that will help rid us of a wholly unnecessary scourge – and leave a greener and safer planet for our children and grandchildren to enjoy.