We who live in Chislehurst have the country’s biggest manufacturer of ill-health on our doorstep.

24/7 there are massive lorries loading tens of thousands of bottles and cans of the appalling stuff at the factory on Edgington Way, Sidcup. As the laden lorries come out, tankers from Tate and Lyle drive in with yet more sugar.  In the yard you will see suspicious-looking tanks holding the secret ingredient, which feeds caffeine, on top of excess sugar, to children, whose parents should be done for neglect, causing hyper-activity and misbehaviour.

 

The used bottles and cans become the responsibility of volunteer litter collectors and local authorities.

There are moves toward a return-deposit scheme financed by the companies responsible for the single-use plastic and metal drinks containers.  The companies are lobbying governments against this. They could not give a damn about the impact of their business on peoples’ health and the environment.

And if our slow-motion government were to make such a scheme statutory, the likes of Coca Cola would squirm their way out of it by changing to non-recyclable materials or some other ruse.

 

Our benighted government, despite British children having the worst dental health and being the fattest in Europe, refuses to prohibit the sale of “high-energy, ” drinks to children.   (“High-energy translates as dangerously high in sugar.)  Again, this is partly due to the lobbying carried out by the drinks manufacturers.

 

I wish parents would switch off Love Island and Strictly for long enough to learn how their children are poisoning themselves by eating and drinking junk.

Yes, I am angry about this.  I have just spent three hours picking up litter around Chislehurst.  It included dozens of bottles and cans which contained Coca Cola, Fanta, Lucozade, Zero and High-5,

all of it offering the buyer nothing but crap they can best do without.