Mail’s proud decade

IN the ten years since the Mail launched its campaign against the scourge of plastic pollution, we have seen a truly remarkable shift in public attitudes.

The number of plastic shopping bags we use has dropped by 80 per cent – a reduction of over seven billion a year – toxic microbeads have been banned in beauty products, a further ban is promised on plastic straws and coffee shop chains are switching from plastic-lined cups to reusable ones. We are hugely proud of our part in this astonishing transformation.

But the task is far from over. Every day, we still fail to recycle 15million plastic bottles, 700,000 of which end up as litter on our streets and in our countryside. A deposit and return scheme is sorely needed to combat this tide of pollution.

So we have this message to ministers: We’ve come a long way in ten years and the momentum is still with us. Don’t let it stall now by dragging your feet. WE are well used to the country grinding to a halt at the slightest snowfall. But now it seems hysteria has set in before the bad weather even arrives – a ‘snow emergency’ has already been declared, with widespread train and flight cancellations, panic-buying in the shops and the NHS warning that it may not be able to cope. Whatever happened to the British stiff upper lip?