Wemustforcebig business to turn the tide on plastic

Doug Allan’s comments on pages 32 and 33 are hugely depressing.

This is a man who has travelled the world over many years looking at nature in all its glory.

But now he is seeing it threatened by man’s throwaway culture.

Beautiful creatures left to suffer slow and lingering deaths after ingesting plastic that has found its way into our oceans.

The dangers of such pollution are well documented. And, perhaps, finally the tide is beginning to turn. However, the pace of change must speed up and it is up to us, the general public, to lead that charge. Perhaps, in the past, we were naive. We enjoyed the benefits of modern progress unaware that these perceived benefits came at a cost.

Now, we need to all review our lifestyles to see how we can reduce our addiction to using plastic. Lessons can come from the past. Remember what our own parents and grandparents did before prepackaged foods and carrier bags swamped our lives.

Our relatives bought food from local shops that was sold loose and then wrapped in paper. Milk came in glass bottles that, once empty, were washed out before being reused.

Ready meals didn’t really exist. Food was cooked from scratch, with leftovers recycled. Remember when Sunday’s lamb became Monday’s stovies? A seemingly endless supply of plastic bags at the supermarket? At least bags for life are now becoming ingrained into our weekly shopping habits. We have to accept that our own laziness and the marketing man’s sales patter has led us to a position where the very existence of some species is threatened.

So let’s change our ways and, ultimately, force big business to change its ways.