Letters: April 2021
Readers discuss AI inventors and recycling, and tell a classic joke
Unpacking the problem
I agree with Don Clark’s letter, except when he suggests ‘consumer attitudes need to be radically different before change will occur’. Consumer attitudes have changed. The Recycling Tracker Report for 2020, produced by the sustainability charity Wrap, states that almost nine out of 10 people are recycling regularly. Half of UK households are high performance recyclers who make few mistakes, and about a third are puzzled about what to recycle where.
Customers do not demand plastic bags and blister packs, that’s the way everything comes. When we gift a special bottle for delivery, we do not insist on two litres of polystyrene packing chips in a cardboard tea chest.
The best place to deal with a problem is where it originates – in this case, with the attitudes of suppliers and manufacturers.
Walter Cuthbert FRSC
Manchester, UK