One’s done with plastic pollution at the palaces

Royal household backs environmental campaign inspired by Sir David Attenborough films

The Queen has been inspired by Sir David Attenborough to join the campaign to reduce use of plastic, banning straws and bottles from the royal estates. Buckingham Palace outlined new waste plans and said there was a “strong desire to tackle the issue” at the highest levels of the royal household. It is thought that the Queen became personally interested in the problem of plastic after working with Sir David on a documentary about Commonwealth wildlife.

THE Queen has been inspired by Sir David Attenborough to join the campaign to reduce use of plastic, banning straws and bottles from the royal estates. Buckingham Palace outlined new waste plans and said there was a “strong desire to tackle the issue” at the highest levels of the royal household.

It is thought that the Queen became personally interested in the problem of plastic after working with Sir David on a conservation documentary dealing with wildlife in the Commonwealth.

The pair, both 91, were filmed laughing and joking together during the programme, which discussed plants to create a network of national forested parks across the 52 countries of the Commonwealth. The new measures include gradually phasing out plastic straws in public cafes and banning them altogether in staff dining rooms.

Internal caterers at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh will now only be allowed to use china plates and glasses, or recyclable paper cups.

Takeaway food items in the Royal Collection cafes must also now be made of compostable or biodegradable packaging.

“Across the organisation, the royal household is committed to reducing its environmental impact,” said a Palace spokesman.

“As part of that, we have taken a number of practical steps to cut back on the use of plastics. At all levels, there’s a strong desire to tackle this issue.”

As well as the Queen’s interest, the Prince of Wales also regularly speaks about the damage to the oceans caused by dumped plastic and recently warned that the world was facing an “escalating ecological and human disaster” from refuse in the seas. Most plastic packaging items are used only once before being discarded, often ending up polluting the environment.

Britons use 7.7billion single-use plastic water bottles a year and fewer than half are recycled, meaning that 16 million bottles are binned every day in the UK.

Each year, more than 300 million tons of plastic are produced globally, and 10 per cent will end up in the sea. It is estimated that there is now a 1:2 ratio of plastic to plankton and, left unchecked, plastic will outweigh fish by 2050. Sir David also made the case against plastic in Blue Planet II.

Julian Kirby, of Friends of the Earth, said: “Blue Planet’s reach now extends to the royal households, which shows how much momentum is building behind the war on plastic pollution.

“From smallholdings to Sandringham, everyone is sick of this problem and wants it fixed. Ultimate responsibility remains with manufacturers and government to stop this senseless harm to our environment, with its resultant devastation of wildlife.”