May joins our crusade against plastic peril

AS Theresa May takes personal charge of a crusade against plastic waste, this is a day to celebrate the power of a campaigning free Press to change our world for the better.

At the Mail, we hesitate to blow our own trumpet. But we take pride in our central role, handsomely acknowledged by the Prime Minister, in transforming the way people behave and think about the wanton pollution of our planet.

When we launched our Banish the Bags campaign, ten years ago next month, it was touch and go how shoppers would react to our proposal that a small charge should be imposed on single-use plastic bags, used on average for 20 minutes but taking up to 1,000 years to rot away.

Yet far from complaining, the public enthusiastically embraced the idea, to the point where it has now become second nature for most to bring their own reusable bags to the supermarket.

Indeed, in the two years since the charge became mandatory in chain stores (it is now to be extended to smaller shops), the number of plastic bags issued has plummeted by an astonishing 9billion. That’s 9billion fewer unnecessary pollutants to endanger wildlife and scar our streets, countryside, rivers and seas.

But there is a massive amount to be done if our ecosystem is to be saved from the trillions of indestructible toxic microbeads, superfluous packaging and billions of unrecycled plastic bottles and coffee cups recklessly churned out each year.

It is too soon to predict how effective Mrs May’s proposals will be. But her plan to divert foreign aid money to cleaning up the seas can only be welcome, while her ambition to eliminate avoidable plastic waste in 25 years is hugely encouraging.

As the Mail has always argued, the plastic plague can be beaten – leaving a cleaner, greener planet for our children and grandchildren. All that is needed is common sense and political will. Mrs May shows every sign she has both.