Bottling it

So... we’re being told that from 2021 we’re going to get 20p back on most glass and plastic bottles when we return them to where we bought them.

A fine i dea, I’m sure, but like the idea of taxing parking spaces, it’s a “green” nonstar t er! Handing back t he bottles is the easy part of the deal... getting the cashback side of things right is highly problematic.

Are s up e r market s r e a l - ly going to hire members of staff to man the doors close to empty crates marked “glass” and “plastic” and alongside a till full of 20p coins to hand back? I think not!

Is your local publican going to stop serving at the bar on a busy Saturday night just to return to you 80p for the four empty wine and beer bottles you’ve “said” you’ve just put into the bottle bins at the side of his pub? I think not!

Certainly in Fife, both used glass and plastic bottles are handled perfectly well from the recycling point of view so why complicate something that works?

And as for the “green” part of this new issue, are we to have even more bulky vehicles trundling back and forth on our roads with those bottles and generating even more diesel fumes? I thought that was the very thing that the Greens abhorred!

ARCHIBALD A LAWRIE

Church Wynd Kingskettle, Fife