I JUST wish that scientists in the 1930s had found a CO2 free way to dispose of plastic as well as developing it in the first place.

Made from coal, oil and other organic matter it’s light, can be shaped without limit and will last for at least 500 years without rotting, though it burns very easily, giving off CO2 and a wide range of unhealthy chemicals.

In the Forties it gave us the pvc 12-inch records, and by 1980 it was used for high pressure water pipes, and has now taken over. Indeed the showcase stadium for the Qatar World Cup in 1922 will be inside a super reflective plastic cover to keep it cooler.

Since the Thirties the total production of ten billion tonnes has proved difficult to dispose of, with just nine percent recycled, a little more burned and over three quarters ending up as litter or in the sea. The air we breathe contains minute plastic fibres, from our clothes and general lifestyles, and we ingest at least one thousand particles each year.

Half of all the plastic becomes waste in just three years and then accumulates. At the current rate it will weigh the same as one tenth of all the vegetation on the planet by 2050 just when the plastic particles in the sea will outweigh all the fish and other life forms.

World wide over one million plastic bottles are bought every minute and Coca Cola has increased its production by over a billion, with less than a quarter of them recycled.

Just half of the bottles are recycled in the UK compared with over 90 per cent in the 20-plus countries, including Fiji and Lithuania, that already have a returnable deposit on the purchase price.

Please encourage your MP to demand such a positive scheme in England.

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