A rotten example

Where’s the bottle on recycling?

IF THE Government is still unsure about the need to introduce a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles as a matter of urgency, it should view the video produced by Greenpeace ahead of today’s report by Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee which also takes Ministers to task.

Voiced by two of Britain’s best impressionists, Jon Culshaw and Matt Forde, the animation holds Boris Johnson and the Government to account for the plastic pollution crisis the UK is creating overseas and how the rhetoric of Ministers bears no resemblance to their policy action in recent years.

In a year when Britain is supposedly showcasing its green credentials to the world as host of, first, the G7 gathering of world leaders and then the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, what will it take for them to introduce a bottle return scheme to cut waste, encourage recycling and protect the planet? Covid is no excuse for this measured being pushed back to 2024. Where’s the bottle?