I've had a letter published in the Guardian - here is a link to the page or you can read it below.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/11/uks-wasted-chances-to-recycle-and-renew?CMP=share_btn_tw

In view of the appalling revelations that the UK has been shipping vast quantities of plastic to China for many years, would it not be a good idea to have the UK lead once more in something and have genuine recycling plants set up here in the country? I mean genuine plants to process plastic from the UK and the rest of Europe, not just depots for onward reselling as seems to have been the case.

There are initiatives to use such waste plastic in innovative ways. For example there is a small startup company in Scotland, MacRebur, developing ways to reduce the amount of toxic bitumen in asphalt by substituting a proportion of waste plastic into the mix. Surely we should urge government and private industry to build and develop plants to deal with the problem now, before we are knee-deep in bottles?