Westminster councillor Tim Mitchell draws attention to a key issue in the plastics recycling debate: contamination by “wrong items”, such as the compostable bags now becoming widely used by the Guardian, Waitrose and others (Letters, 24 August).
As he says, just one or two such bags can contaminate an entire batch and even I, a former journalist working in the plastics sector, find it hard to be certain of the exact composition of many of the bags I receive.
But my conclusion is exactly opposite to his: because we cannot rely on people to make sure they only put recyclable materials in the recycling bins, we should stop separating all household waste and simply burn it, recovering the energy from the plastics we “borrowed” from the oil stream and the other combustibles, in efficient plants, with carbon dioxide recovery to reduce global warming. It’s called the appliance of science.
David Reed
London
• Amazon has been criticised for using plastic bags that are not recyclable for its deliveries (Report, 21 August). But in our eagerness to avoid single-use plastics, we must not lose sight of the even more serious problem of carbon emissions. If the new packaging allows more parcels on to the trucks delivering them, less carbon dioxide will be emitted, which will contribute towards averting climate catastrophe.
Janet Poliakoff
Beeston, Nottingham
• Re your report (Chicken or beef? Enjoy both on longest nonstop flight, 19 hours Sydney to London, 23 August): emergency, what emergency? How our unquestioning attitudes need to change, now.
Rob Dale
Yorkley, Gloucestershire
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