Red herrings, recycling and sustainability

Some of the Express’ readers may have seen last week’s Panorama programme – Coca-Cola’s 100 Billion Bottle Problem – on BBC1.

I thought the producers did a fantastic job of summarising the main reasons for the world’s plastic pollution problem into 30 minutes of interesting and very watchable television.

Those who didn’t see it can still find it on BBC iPlayer – I thoroughly recommend it.

A day or two earlier, Boris Johnson held a question-and-answer session at 10 Downing Street with several dozen children ahead of

COP26 in Glasgow.

During the session he named Coca-Cola as one of 12 corporations ‘producing the overwhelming bulk of the world’s plastics’.

Addressing the subject of recycling he said: “Recycling isn’t the answer, I’ve got to be honest with you. You’re not going to like this. It doesn’t begin to address the problem. You can only recycle plastic a couple of times, really. What you’ve got to do is stop the production of plastic, stop the first use of plastic. The recycling thing is a red herring … We’ve all got to cut down on our use of plastic.”

When challenged on his point, he continued: “It doesn’t work. I don’t want to be doctrinaire about this, but if people think we can just recycle our way out of the problem, we’ll be making a huge mistake.”

The Prime Minister is absolutely right – we need to stop the production of single use plastic. We need to turn off the tap.

The plastics industry actively promotes the idea that it’s OK to buy goods in single use plastic packaging because it can be recycled.

The truth is that a tiny fraction of this plastic is recycled.

The vast majority goes to landfill, is incinerated, or ends up in the world’s oceans.

As consumers we can have a significant impact on the problem and help to turn off the tap by boycotting single use plastic wherever possible.

Recycling should be the last resort and only for plastic that can’t be avoided.

PAUL HINTON Plastic Free Windsor