Waste potential

SIR – Your article (January 3) highlights the problems facing local councils and waste managers following China’s ban on importing our plastic waste. The suggestion that now we should bury or burn that plastic is simply wrong.

Packaging producers pay just 10 per cent towards all of England’s waste management costs, leaving councils to fund the rest. Producers should pay the full recovery costs for their packaging.

We also need systems that mean all plastic can be efficiently collected for recycling within Britain. We have the opportunity to reset our attitude to waste, seeing it as a resource rather than something to be thrown away. We also need to make sure that those responsible for creating waste pay for it to be collected and recycled. Samantha Harding

Litter Programme Director, Campaign to Protect Rural England London SE1

SIR – I am an honorary consultant civil engineer for some heritage railways, including the Kent & East Sussex Railway.

The group recently decided to use reconstituted-waste plastic railway sleepers on one of its bridges. The sleepers don’t rot, are lighter and more resilient than timber or concrete, and they don’t hold water. Shouldn’t we be investigating other applications for reconstituted-waste plastic rather than sending the problem to China? Graham Bessant

Chislehurst