Cups, straws, bags – why not simply ban the lot?

WITHOUT the Mail’s Turn The Tide On Plastic campaign, we would not be seeing the Prime Minister waging her own war on plastic. But she should be bolder: the 5p charge is due to be levied on plastic bags in all shops — but why not make it 10p? Instead of a ‘war’ on plastic cups, cutlery and straws, why not ban them? Plastic-free supermarket aisles? Why not fund plasticfree shops? The 25-year target will fall short of what our planet needs. Let’s be plastic-free by 2025.

A. J. SMITH, March, Cambs. WORKING in the vending machine industry in the Seventies, the problem of what to do with all the used plastic cups soon became apparent. I fully expected they would be made from soya beans so they would break down biologically or could even be eaten after drinking from them. This never happened because the objection was that the Brazilians would cut down the rainforest to grow more soya beans.

JOHN ATKINS, Greatstone, Kent.

PLASTIC cups? Why not wait to get to work and boil a kettle? It’s so much cheaper than takeaway coffee. Anyway, drinking or eating in the street is bad manners.

P. WATSON, Grimsby, Lincs. IT MIGHT help stop the plastic crisis if young women were told how silly they look wandering the streets clutching ludicrously over-priced, pseudo coffee in plastic cups.

NOLENE GRIFFITHS, Rye, E. Sussex.