The scale of Britain’s plastic waste problem can be seen on every street
SIR – The picture of Crooklets Beach is heartbreaking (“Storm Eleanor’s shocking legacy: British beaches covered in plastic”, report, January 10).
However, readers need not head to Cornwall to observe the tide of plastic and other rubbish sweeping across the land. Last summer, my family picked up no fewer than 5,000 drink-related items of rubbish from the streets of Maidenhead in a matter of weeks. We purchased 200 clear refuse sacks in late August and have just reordered. One hour spent picking up after the school run usually generates two sacks of rubbish from every kerb, gutter, hedge and grass verge one passes.
While the plight of the beaches and seas that surround Britain deserves every column inch, I urge readers to look closer to home to witness the scale of the problem we have created. Philip Avery
Maidenhead, Berkshire
SIR – The proposed 5p tax on singleuse plastic bottles (report, January 8) would not make any difference to people’s buying habits. There needs to be an incentive to return the bottles. As a regular traveller to Norway, I have seen how the system of reverse vending – where plastic bottles are exchanged for a voucher to spend in the participating store – works well. I have seen people search litter bins for plastic items, usually left by tourists unaware of the system, in order to take them back. We need to get this scheme working in our supermarkets as soon as possible. Terence Jenkins
New Malden, Surrey
SIR – Common plastics are made from fossil fuels. They consist of the elements carbon and hydrogen; polyesters such as PET also contain oxygen. All are packed with energy.
As long as the country generates electricity from fossil fuels, electricity generation by the incineration of domestic plastic waste should be government policy. There is an enormous economic and environmental benefit in the double use of fossil fuels: first in plastic packaging, and then in electricity generation. The same double-use argument also applies to the incineration of paper or cardboard waste.
The plastic crisis needs an unbiased, constructive solution. Our electric cars could be powered on the plastic waste we were once shipping to China. Dr Alan Dillarstone
Seaham, Co Durham
SIR – Now that China has stopped accepting our plastic waste, may I make a plea for firms to return to sending items through the post in paper envelopes.
The awful soft plastic sleeves cannot be recycled or reused, except to wrap rubbish, which then goes into landfill.
My parochial church council secretary and I once kept a paper envelope in internal circulation for 12 months, by the use of judicious crossings-out and sticky labels. Gillian Lurie
Westgate-on-sea, Kent