Ankle-deep in plastic trash.

This country is second only to the USA in production of single-use plastic and yet the government has failed to devise a way of properly dealing with it.

We re-cycle less than 10 per cent of our own plastic. Nearly 40 per cent has been going to Turkey, which has no proper way of dealing with it and so it just gets dumped in land-fill or is incinerated. Turkey has now refused to take any more of our plastic rubbish.

Dirty man of Europe, which we are, we send about 60 per cent of our plastic to Third World countries, where it is dumped in land-fill sites, or in the sea, or is incinerated, releasing all manner of air-borne toxins.

 

Our government and local councils do not care what happens to it just as long as it is off their hands.  This cannot continue. What finishes up in the ocean eventually washes up on our beaches. Whatever pollutants are emitted into the atmosphere affect all of us.  There is only one atmosphere and so all the muck goes into the shared mix.

Big business does not care.  Coca Cola and the other drinks companies churn out billions of plastic bottles  and aluminium cans each year, passing on the problem of disposal to their customers and local councils. Most customers chuck their bottles and cans on the ground (mucky buggers that they are), eaving it to volunteer good citizens to collect their trash.

What the government should do is clear.

If a manufacturer cannot devise a return or re-use system, the product should be banned from manufacture and sale.  Nobody is going to die from lack of Coca Cola or bottled water.

The same goes for canned drinks.

Coca Cola and the other trash creators will kick up a stink and so will many of their customers.

 

Too bad. For lack of  Cola and other sugary muck, people will suffer less obesity and less tooth decay.

Get used to it.

Let the government take at least one radical step on the way to COP26 in November.