Plastic Mountain

slowbike

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/u ... k-homepage

You get these "WTF" moments ...
We're told "recycle recycle recycle" ... and so we do ... yet all we're doing is sending our waste to another country for them to deal with. That country has now said "enough" and our recycle chiefs have just said "dunno what to do now" ...

??! eh?
Ok - we buy Shedloadsofplasticcrap from China & the FE - we send back some as waste - but have no thought process on how we're going to deal with the rest ... ? Really - we haven't even considered processing the plastic ourselves?

fat daddy

hopefully this will kickstart the recycling revolution and we will start dealing with it instead of sweeping it under the rug.

I am hoping that it will force new regulation on only importing goods with a percentage of recycleable material only .. it would boost jobs all over the place from researching new plastics to packaging to recycling

rjsterry

I think quite a few people are seeing this as an opportunity, so I think it will be good for the UK, although there might be a bit of panic in the immediate term.

Ben6899

fat daddy wrote:

hopefully this will kickstart the recycling revolution and we will start dealing with it instead of sweeping it under the rug.

I am hoping that it will force new regulation on only importing goods with a percentage of recycleable material only .. it would boost jobs all over the place from researching new plastics to packaging to recycling

About time, if that does happen. We're not encouraged sufficiently to recycle in the UK. For example, in Germany (in BW anyway), recycling is collected every week and landfill every 3 or 4 weeks. So you either treat your waste responsibly (recycle what can be recycled) or it ends up collecting as landfill on your drive for a month at a time. And if you put something recyclable in the landfill waste then you'll receive a fine. Not the threat of a fine, an actual fine from the state.

Back to the UK now. We live in a small block and on landfill/recycling collection day (the same day, as it happens) only half of the households in our block actually put out any recycling. I can only presume the other half throw everything in the landfill bin (well I don't presume - I've seen the aftermath of carelessly stored landfill being ravaged by urban foxes and there's definitely recyclables in there). How feckless is that? In fact, it's infuriatingly irresponsible.

So I'm all for some kind of landfill/recycling revolution and if that upsets a few people, because they end up with landfill stacking up outside their homes and/or fines for not recycling, well f*** 'em.

An emotive topic for me, sorry for the little rant at the end.

Pross

Ben6899 wrote:

fat daddy wrote:

hopefully this will kickstart the recycling revolution and we will start dealing with it instead of sweeping it under the rug.

I am hoping that it will force new regulation on only importing goods with a percentage of recycleable material only .. it would boost jobs all over the place from researching new plastics to packaging to recycling

About time, if that does happen. We're not encouraged sufficiently to recycle in the UK. For example, in Germany (in BW anyway), recycling is collected every week and landfill every 3 or 4 weeks. So you either treat your waste responsibly (recycle what can be recycled) or it ends up collecting as landfill on your drive for a month at a time. And if you put something recyclable in the landfill waste then you'll receive a fine. Not the threat of a fine, an actual fine from the state.

Back to the UK now. We live in a small block and on landfill/recycling collection day (the same day, as it happens) only half of the households in our block actually put out any recycling. I can only presume the other half throw everything in the landfill bin (well I don't presume - I've seen the aftermath of carelessly stored landfill being ravaged by urban foxes and there's definitely recyclables in there). How feckless is that? In fact, it's infuriatingly irresponsible.

So I'm all for some kind of landfill/recycling revolution and if that upsets a few people, because they end up with landfill stacking up outside their homes and/or fines for not recycling, well f*** 'em.

An emotive topic for me, sorry for the little rant at the end.

Many parts of Wales have pretty stringent recycling. There's places in North Wales with monthly collection but I prefer the system we have where they still do fortnightly collections but have replaced the non-recyclable bins with one half the size so we are still putting a quarter of the amount of waste into landfill compared to 10-15 years ago. Apparently Wales has the best recycling rates in Europe after Germany, plenty moan when the rules change but like everything if the authorities stick to their guns it soon calms down.

However, I suspect most of us assume the recycling is actually being recycled rather than shipped half way around the world. It reminds me of a comedy sketch I saw a few years ago of someone sorting all their waste into the correct slots but the camera then shows the back where there's just one big skip! I certainly thought glass, plastics and metals were just recycled in this country so the whole China thing was a bit of a shock. There's talk of incinerating the plastic in waste to energy plants but I can't imagine that's the most healthy or environmentally friendly thing to do.

rjsterry

Ben6899 wrote:

fat daddy wrote:

hopefully this will kickstart the recycling revolution and we will start dealing with it instead of sweeping it under the rug.

I am hoping that it will force new regulation on only importing goods with a percentage of recycleable material only .. it would boost jobs all over the place from researching new plastics to packaging to recycling

About time, if that does happen. We're not encouraged sufficiently to recycle in the UK. For example, in Germany (in BW anyway), recycling is collected every week and landfill every 3 or 4 weeks. So you either treat your waste responsibly (recycle what can be recycled) or it ends up collecting as landfill on your drive for a month at a time. And if you put something recyclable in the landfill waste then you'll receive a fine. Not the threat of a fine, an actual fine from the state.

Back to the UK now. We live in a small block and on landfill/recycling collection day (the same day, as it happens) only half of the households in our block actually put out any recycling. I can only presume the other half throw everything in the landfill bin (well I don't presume - I've seen the aftermath of carelessly stored landfill being ravaged by urban foxes and there's definitely recyclables in there). How feckless is that? In fact, it's infuriatingly irresponsible.

So I'm all for some kind of landfill/recycling revolution and if that upsets a few people, because they end up with landfill stacking up outside their homes and/or fines for not recycling, well f*** 'em.

An emotive topic for me, sorry for the little rant at the end.

They've recently tweaked our recycling system so we now have a separate food waste bin which goes off to a big bio digester in Surrey. They made a bit of a hash of the introduction and you'd think dead bodies were being left in the street from the fuss being made, but as you say the council/Veolia stuck with it and everyone has forgotten about it. A big problem with plastic waste is contamination (either with the remains of the original contents or multiple types of plastic) so if they can find a way of making the whole package out one type of plastic that will make a big difference.

FishFish

I think that the local authorities have made a good start over the past five years or so - but this is to reduce landfill. Paper recycling has been fairly good for some time now and pvc recycling has an industry. Metal fine - but not at a domestic level.

I think that glass recycling is endothermic - it uses more energy than making new bottles and so has a CO2 implication. Freon gas - the stuff of holes in the ionosphere is a horror - there are still mountains of old fridges rotting away which will eventually release dangerous refridgerant.

The food waste idea is good - in Sweden they use it to supply gas fuel - methane? - to the biobusses.

DeVlaeminck

Ultimately don't we as a society need to look at the other end of the process more, the amount of stuff we produce, use and throw away?

burnthesheep

Idiocracy and Wall-E the movies are becoming documentaries instead of entertainment.

rjsterry

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Ultimately don't we as a society need to look at the other end of the process more, the amount of stuff we produce, use and throw away?

I think we need to hit it at both ends.

mr_goo

Oh. I thought this was a thread about the sequel to Brokeback Mountain.

trivial_poursuivant

Ben6899 wrote:

fat daddy wrote:

hopefully this will kickstart the recycling revolution and we will start dealing with it instead of sweeping it under the rug.

I am hoping that it will force new regulation on only importing goods with a percentage of recycleable material only .. it would boost jobs all over the place from researching new plastics to packaging to recycling

About time, if that does happen. We're not encouraged sufficiently to recycle in the UK. For example, in Germany (in BW anyway), recycling is collected every week and landfill every 3 or 4 weeks. So you either treat your waste responsibly (recycle what can be recycled) or it ends up collecting as landfill on your drive for a month at a time. And if you put something recyclable in the landfill waste then you'll receive a fine. Not the threat of a fine, an actual fine from the state.

Back to the UK now. We live in a small block and on landfill/recycling collection day (the same day, as it happens) only half of the households in our block actually put out any recycling. I can only presume the other half throw everything in the landfill bin (well I don't presume - I've seen the aftermath of carelessly stored landfill being ravaged by urban foxes and there's definitely recyclables in there). How feckless is that? In fact, it's infuriatingly irresponsible.

So I'm all for some kind of landfill/recycling revolution and if that upsets a few people, because they end up with landfill stacking up outside their homes and/or fines for not recycling, well f*** 'em.

An emotive topic for me, sorry for the little rant at the end.

Germany also have Bottle returns and drinks markets (getrankemarkt) which people buy most water/soft drinks/beer from. Supermarkets also do bottle returns for both glass and plastic. Bit like a reverse vending machine you feed bottles into. I can recall many times going to Lidl to return my empties. It took 5 minutes and you get a receipt you hand over when you buy your next crates of drinks. It works excellently yet when hey suggest doing it in UK people react like your asking them to do some arduous task. We are a lazy selfish society and we need a kick in the ass to wake people up.

mamba80

Ben6899 wrote:

fat daddy wrote:

hopefully this will kickstart the recycling revolution and we will start dealing with it instead of sweeping it under the rug.

I am hoping that it will force new regulation on only importing goods with a percentage of recycleable material only .. it would boost jobs all over the place from researching new plastics to packaging to recycling

About time, if that does happen. We're not encouraged sufficiently to recycle in the UK. For example, in Germany (in BW anyway), recycling is collected every week and landfill every 3 or 4 weeks. So you either treat your waste responsibly (recycle what can be recycled) or it ends up collecting as landfill on your drive for a month at a time. And if you put something recyclable in the landfill waste then you'll receive a fine. Not the threat of a fine, an actual fine from the state.

Back to the UK now. We live in a small block and on landfill/recycling collection day (the same day, as it happens) only half of the households in our block actually put out any recycling. I can only presume the other half throw everything in the landfill bin (well I don't presume - I've seen the aftermath of carelessly stored landfill being ravaged by urban foxes and there's definitely recyclables in there). How feckless is that? In fact, it's infuriatingly irresponsible.

So I'm all for some kind of landfill/recycling revolution and if that upsets a few people, because they end up with landfill stacking up outside their homes and/or fines for not recycling, well f*** 'em.

An emotive topic for me, sorry for the little rant at the end.

totally agree, lived in Stockholm in the 90s, my then GF couldnt believe how much i thought was acceptable to throw away, they recycled everything, had about 6 different bins for glass and plastics, also, supermarkets didnt package every fcuking thing in plastic wrapping and people did as they were asked.

i cant believe people in this country are now blaming China... they make stuff to OUR western demands, its nothing to do with them and they did give us 6 months notice.

i dont know how on earth recycle schemes would be enforced, incentives and punishments via council tax? but the real answer lays in not giving the stuff to consumers to deal with in the first place.

i have to say, if cyclists think its ok to msling gel wrappers and loads do, then there is little hope.

earth

Slowbike wrote:

Really - we haven't even considered processing the plastic ourselves?

I read about this a couple of weeks ago. The other alternative is to stop producing so much plastic waste.

The majority of plastic waste I have to put in the recycling bin is from the supermarket. Package food differently and it will make a big dent in the problem.

pblakeney

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Germany also have Bottle returns and drinks markets (getrankemarkt) which people buy most water/soft drinks/beer from. Supermarkets also do bottle returns for both glass and plastic. Bit like a reverse vending machine you feed bottles into. I can recall many times going to Lidl to return my empties. It took 5 minutes and you get a receipt you hand over when you buy your next crates of drinks. It works excellently yet when hey suggest doing it in UK people react like your asking them to do some arduous task. We are a lazy selfish society and we need a kick in the ass to wake people up.

We used to to have similar practices here for glass bottles. Kids used to love bolstering their pocket money. Strange how things turn out in the name of progress... I'd say laziness though.

earth

You've got to wonder though why China is no longer interested in recycling our shit? It's not as if they have a shortage of people needing jobs. Can only be that it is not economic for them. If that is the case then I suspect it is even less economically viable for us to do it instead. I still think the better solution would be to stop using plastic unnecessarily as food packaging.

trivial_poursuivant

earth wrote:

You've got to wonder though why China is no longer interested in recycling our shoot? It's not as if they have a shortage of people needing jobs. Can only be that it is not economic for them. If that is the case then I suspect it is even less economically viable for us to do it instead. I still think the better solution would be to stop using plastic unnecessarily as food packaging.

They need to reduce their carbon footprint like all other nations as per UN quotas. So theirs will go down and our will go back up since we cannot pass our sh1t on and pretend it’s not ours

Ben6899

I forgot about the bottle returns in Germany. Very true. And it works.

And as RJS said, we also have food bins here. Completely voluntarily though so - again - only half of our block bother (the same half).

We're lazy bastards as a society (I say "we", you know what I mean) so unless we're incentivised, we won't bother - f***, people even p1ss and moan about taking bottles back. Presumably because the reward isn't sufficient and it's menial. Leave it to someone else to do.

Feckless c***s.

mr_goo

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

earth wrote:

You've got to wonder though why China is no longer interested in recycling our shoot? It's not as if they have a shortage of people needing jobs. Can only be that it is not economic for them. If that is the case then I suspect it is even less economically viable for us to do it instead. I still think the better solution would be to stop using plastic unnecessarily as food packaging.

They need to reduce their carbon footprint like all other nations as per UN quotas. So theirs will go down and our will go back up since we cannot pass our sh1t on and pretend it’s not ours

Whilst the likes of Germany and France have better recycling regimes than the UK, they're still going to be affected by China's global stop on recycling other countries cr4p.
Basically it's typical of the UK to expect other countries to deal with our mess. Now we've gotta do it ourselves. It'll also mean changes to packaging etc etc.

trivial_poursuivant

Mr Goo wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

earth wrote:

You've got to wonder though why China is no longer interested in recycling our shoot? It's not as if they have a shortage of people needing jobs. Can only be that it is not economic for them. If that is the case then I suspect it is even less economically viable for us to do it instead. I still think the better solution would be to stop using plastic unnecessarily as food packaging.

They need to reduce their carbon footprint like all other nations as per UN quotas. So theirs will go down and our will go back up since we cannot pass our sh1t on and pretend it’s not ours

Whilst the likes of Germany and France have better recycling regimes than the UK, they're still going to be affected by China's global stop on recycling other countries cr4p.
Basically it's typical of the UK to expect other countries to deal with our mess. Now we've gotta do it ourselves. It'll also mean changes to packaging etc etc.

Agree with your first bit. But these countries are also better prepared to implement and accept changes in packaging and recycling than the UK is. They already have an infrastructure in place to build on. We on the other hand have f@ck all and as with all other public services will struggle to cope and go to ratshit . Then the feckless Tory w@nker govt will refuse to pay them more or raise taxes to pay for the extra recycling infrastructure we need to do things ourselves.

Ben6899

Mr Goo wrote:

It'll also mean changes to packaging etc etc.

Good. Fruit sold in plastic wrappers, ffs.

trivial_poursuivant

Ben6899 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

It'll also mean changes to packaging etc etc.

Good. Fruit sold in plastic wrappers, ffs.

This is what happens when you let supermarkets destroy high street and corner shop businesses like green grocers , butchers etc. I can remember all fruit being loose sold in paper bags and you weighed it yourself. Same in butchers. Meat was wrapped in paper. Now it’s all cellophane and polystyrene . Neither are recyclable. If you think about all the food in your cupboards at home, how much is in eco-friendly packaging? Milk is no longer in glass bottles. Things like individually wrapped sweets or single portion food and drinks etc are insanely wasteful. I’d rather pay a bit more for a chocolate bar wrapped in paper and foil than plastic. Yes Foil is expensive to make but it’s not going to poison the environment as it degrades.

Ben6899

Totally agree, TP.

If the fruit or veg we need is only available in the plastic wrap guise, then we cook something else. Of course, farmers market is Plan A, but life isn't perfect and sometimes the big places come to the rescue.

But so many people don't care a jot. So that shrink wrapped broccoli that we snubbed - the next person will buy it. So there's no message being passed to the retailers. In fact - and this boils my p1ss - I bet if you surveyed 100 people, 70 would prefer their veg shrink wrapped because of "germs".

I'm going off at tangents here, apologies.

rjsterry

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Ben6899 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

It'll also mean changes to packaging etc etc.

Good. Fruit sold in plastic wrappers, ffs.

This is what happens when you let supermarkets destroy high street and corner shop businesses like green grocers , butchers etc. I can remember all fruit being loose sold in paper bags and you weighed it yourself. Same in butchers. Meat was wrapped in paper. Now it’s all cellophane and polystyrene . Neither are recyclable. If you think about all the food in your cupboards at home, how much is in eco-friendly packaging? Milk is no longer in glass bottles. Things like individually wrapped sweets or single portion food and drinks etc are insanely wasteful. I’d rather pay a bit more for a chocolate bar wrapped in paper and foil than plastic. Yes Foil is expensive to make but it’s not going to poison the environment as it degrades.

You'd have a lot more food lost to wastage (and there's more than enough already) if you went back to packaging perishable food in paper. Meat production is pretty carbon intensive so we shouldn't let it rot -letting things rot releases methane which compounds the problem. Plastic milk bottles are one of the easiest to recycle. It's complicated.
Farmers Markets are lovely but they are mainly aimed at those with disposable income and are never going to be the main source of the country's groceries.

rjsterry

Ben6899 wrote:

Totally agree, TP.

If the fruit or veg we need is only available in the plastic wrap guise, then we cook something else. Of course, farmers market is Plan A, but life isn't perfect and sometimes the big places come to the rescue.

But so many people don't care a jot. So that shrink wrapped broccoli that we snubbed - the next person will buy it. So there's no message being passed to the retailers. In fact - and this boils my p1ss - I bet if you surveyed 100 people, 70 would prefer their veg shrink wrapped because of "germs".

I'm going off at tangents here, apologies.

Germs on broccoli is silly, but raw chicken rolling around on a shelf or even hanging on the outside of the shop as they used to do? Some things were definitely worse then.

Ben6899

rjsterry wrote:

Farmers Markets are lovely but they are mainly aimed at those with disposable income and are never going to be the main source of the country's groceries.

It's not that straight forward in our experience. Fruit, veg and fish (I'm pescetarian so we rarely buy other meat) is actually cheaper. Sure, you can buy "artisan" bread or potatoes from the "potato man" and then you'll pay a bit more, but I think on the whole, people would be pleasantly surprised.

trivial_poursuivant

rjsterry wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Ben6899 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

It'll also mean changes to packaging etc etc.

Good. Fruit sold in plastic wrappers, ffs.

This is what happens when you let supermarkets destroy high street and corner shop businesses like green grocers , butchers etc. I can remember all fruit being loose sold in paper bags and you weighed it yourself. Same in butchers. Meat was wrapped in paper. Now it’s all cellophane and polystyrene . Neither are recyclable. If you think about all the food in your cupboards at home, how much is in eco-friendly packaging? Milk is no longer in glass bottles. Things like individually wrapped sweets or single portion food and drinks etc are insanely wasteful. I’d rather pay a bit more for a chocolate bar wrapped in paper and foil than plastic. Yes Foil is expensive to make but it’s not going to poison the environment as it degrades.

You'd have a lot more food lost to wastage (and there's more than enough already) if you went back to packaging perishable food in paper. Meat production is pretty carbon intensive so we shouldn't let it rot -letting things rot releases methane which compounds the problem. Plastic milk bottles are one of the easiest to recycle. It's complicated.
Farmers Markets are lovely but they are mainly aimed at those with disposable income and are never going to be the main source of the country's groceries.

And that is the dismissive nature of things. We can pollute the planet but oh no we can’t be seen wasting good food. A new way of working needs introducing not just a shrug and say ‘ah well it’s better than X’

mr_goo

I think fruit and veg can still be supplied in plastic wrapping and containers. But it needs to be a recyclable plastic.
Check out Florette packaged salads. The plastic wrapper is 100% recyclable, yet next to it at Tescos the own brand equivalent is not in recyclable plastic.
The onus needs to be on the supermarkets and food suppliers plus government to put in place the recycling plant infrastructure.
Germany also runs a recredit system on recycling plastic bottles. Take them back to supermarkets and they give you a credit voucher to spend in store. That kind of incentive will work here.

Did you know that much of the micro plastic that is found in the seas and oceans actually comes from car tyres. Tyres are actually rubber/plastic compounds. As you drive along the road your tyres wear, leaving micro beads on the road surface. When it rains the micro beads are washed down into surface water drains and ditches which actually discharge straight into the seas and not into treatment plants as most people think.
Hover cars are clearly the only solution.

trivial_poursuivant

Mr Goo wrote:

I think fruit and veg can still be supplied in plastic wrapping and containers. But it needs to be a recyclable plastic.
Check out Florette packaged salads. The plastic wrapper is 100% recyclable, yet next to it at Tescos the own brand equivalent is not in recyclable plastic.
The onus needs to be on the supermarkets and food suppliers plus government to put in place the recycling plant infrastructure.
Germany also runs a recredit system on recycling plastic bottles. Take them back to supermarkets and they give you a credit voucher to spend in store. That kind of incentive will work here.

Did you know that much of the micro plastic that is found in the seas and oceans actually comes from car tyres. Tyres are actually rubber/plastic compounds. As you drive along the road your tyres wear, leaving micro beads on the road surface. When it rains the micro beads are washed down into surface water drains and ditches which actually discharge straight into the seas and not into treatment plants as most people think.
Hover cars are clearly the only solution.

How much comes from bike tyres? I feel the Daily Mail will want to blame us for something.

rjsterry

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Ben6899 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

It'll also mean changes to packaging etc etc.

Good. Fruit sold in plastic wrappers, ffs.

This is what happens when you let supermarkets destroy high street and corner shop businesses like green grocers , butchers etc. I can remember all fruit being loose sold in paper bags and you weighed it yourself. Same in butchers. Meat was wrapped in paper. Now it’s all cellophane and polystyrene . Neither are recyclable. If you think about all the food in your cupboards at home, how much is in eco-friendly packaging? Milk is no longer in glass bottles. Things like individually wrapped sweets or single portion food and drinks etc are insanely wasteful. I’d rather pay a bit more for a chocolate bar wrapped in paper and foil than plastic. Yes Foil is expensive to make but it’s not going to poison the environment as it degrades.

You'd have a lot more food lost to wastage (and there's more than enough already) if you went back to packaging perishable food in paper. Meat production is pretty carbon intensive so we shouldn't let it rot -letting things rot releases methane which compounds the problem. Plastic milk bottles are one of the easiest to recycle. It's complicated.
Farmers Markets are lovely but they are mainly aimed at those with disposable income and are never going to be the main source of the country's groceries.

And that is the dismissive nature of things. We can pollute the planet but oh no we can’t be seen wasting good food. A new way of working needs introducing not just a shrug and say ‘ah well it’s better than X’

Wasting food is polluting the planet! Add the carbon emissions of producing the stuff to the methane from letting it rot. I'm not dismissing anything; absolutely we need to reduce and deal with our own waste, but a return to some semi-mythical golden age of paper bags is not the solution. We do have recycling infrastructure in this country albeit with plenty of room for improvement. My local service has improved in the last few years despite cuts in council funding.

trivial_poursuivant

rjsterry wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Ben6899 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

It'll also mean changes to packaging etc etc.

Good. Fruit sold in plastic wrappers, ffs.

This is what happens when you let supermarkets destroy high street and corner shop businesses like green grocers , butchers etc. I can remember all fruit being loose sold in paper bags and you weighed it yourself. Same in butchers. Meat was wrapped in paper. Now it’s all cellophane and polystyrene . Neither are recyclable. If you think about all the food in your cupboards at home, how much is in eco-friendly packaging? Milk is no longer in glass bottles. Things like individually wrapped sweets or single portion food and drinks etc are insanely wasteful. I’d rather pay a bit more for a chocolate bar wrapped in paper and foil than plastic. Yes Foil is expensive to make but it’s not going to poison the environment as it degrades.

You'd have a lot more food lost to wastage (and there's more than enough already) if you went back to packaging perishable food in paper. Meat production is pretty carbon intensive so we shouldn't let it rot -letting things rot releases methane which compounds the problem. Plastic milk bottles are one of the easiest to recycle. It's complicated.
Farmers Markets are lovely but they are mainly aimed at those with disposable income and are never going to be the main source of the country's groceries.

And that is the dismissive nature of things. We can pollute the planet but oh no we can’t be seen wasting good food. A new way of working needs introducing not just a shrug and say ‘ah well it’s better than X’

Wasting food is polluting the planet! Add the carbon emissions of producing the stuff to the methane from letting it rot. I'm not dismissing anything; absolutely we need to reduce and deal with our own waste, but a return to some semi-mythical golden age of paper bags is not the solution. We do have recycling infrastructure in this country albeit with plenty of room for improvement. My local service has improved in the last few years despite cuts in council funding.

Rotting fruit is polluting the planet? The food rotting will also balance out and probably help somewhere doing the line as it decomposes. Plastic will be with us for millennia. That is a shite excuse to say rotting food. Again the point of working out another way to manage short term waste needs sorting. You’re too ready to find excuses for plastic. And that’s the very issue and why we need to break the cycle