SIR - The Scottish Parliament has announced that it will end the use of single-use plastic cups for hot drinks on Scottish government premises from June. They estimate that this will prevent 450,000 plastic cups being thrown away each year.
I have written to the Council’s Chief Executive (Kersten England) and the Council’s Labour Leader (Cllr Hinchcliffe) to ask that Bradford follows Scotland’s example and bans single-use plastic cups from Council premises from July. I hope that they will respond positively.
Keen followers of Bradford politics will recall that the Green councillors tabled a motion at January’s full Council asking for a range of specific actions to phase out single-use plastics. Our proposals attracted Conservative and Liberal Democrat support, but Labour used their majority to block much-needed change.
The result was that Council agreed to “reduce our use of single use plastic when there are practical and equally affordable alternatives”, but there was no commitment to specific measures and or a timeframe despite the urgency of this issue.
I very much hope that, five months on, we can start to reduce our reliance on these environmentally harmful plastic products.
Cllr Kevin Warnes (Green, Shipley), Moorhead Terrace, Shipley
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