The Week UK - 03.08.2019

25

Aburning issue

To The Observer

We have been goingthe wrong

waywith plastics for the last

30 or more years. The effort of

collecting, transporting and

cleaning them for possible

recycling has largely failed,

created more pollution and

contributed to climate change.

The idea of burning plastics

and using the energy to heat

our homes was proposed by

the plastics company Dow

more than 30 years ago: it

suggested treating all plastics as

“borrowed oil”. At that time,

ordinary domestic waste had a

calorific value of low-grade

coal, so the suggestion was that

this waste should be burned in

plants with heat recovery,

perhaps even trapping the

carbon dioxide produced,

rather than trying to recycle the

complex mix of plastics.

Today, with higher use of

more complex plastics, this

makes even more sense. Mixed

plastics cannot really be

recycled: they are long-chain

molecules, like spaghetti, so if

you reheat and reprocess them,

you inevitably end up with

something of lower quality;

it’s called down-cycling.

Of course, this idea doesn’t

deal with all the plastic already

in our environment. Quite

simply, this cannot be

removed and, apart from some

distressing images of trapped

animals, seems to be causing

little impact on human or

animal life.

It is time we adoptedamore

scientific approach.

David Reed, London

Science won’t suffer

To The Daily Telegraph

Iappreciatethe concernofthe

chairman of theWellcome

Trust, Baroness Manningham-

Buller, about Britain’s

continuing scientific excellence

after Brexit, but asascience

historianIamaware of the

long view.

Just over 200 years ago, in

the Napoleonic period, British

scientists and French savants

maintained fruitful

relationships. Sir Humphry

Davy and Michael Faraday

visited colleagues in Paris

duringalull in the war; Mary

Somerville was obtaining the

new cosmological texts of

Pierre-Simon Laplace; William

Buckland and Georges Cuvier

shared discoveries in fossil

geology; and Edward Jenner’s

discovery of the smallpox

vaccination was applauded by

Napoleon himself.

Yet the British scientists of

1810, like the rest of their

compatriots, did not wish to

be part of Napoleon’s vision

for an integrated Europe

under one “enlightened”,

unelected authority. And many

of their modern counterparts

still don’t.

Dr Allan Chapman, Wadham

College, University of Oxford

Amillennial malaise?

To The Times

WhenIwas apolic einspector

at Woolwich in 1988-89, one

of my probationers,ageology

graduate, hadapoor

performance record, with very

few arrests for crime, motoring

offences or public order. I

asked him why he was

struggling, and he replied: “I

don’t like confrontation.” That

was 30 years ago, so this is not

merelyamillennial issue. He

found policing too stressful at

the sharp end (it is even more

difficult now).Ithink the same

is also true for teachers, nurses,

doctors and many others, who

quit their careers for easier

9-to-5 jobs where they face less

pressure.

Alan Boyd, Bromley, Kent

The EU’s unfair trade?

To The Guardian

Thedeathof fair tradecan

partly be laid at thedoor of the

EU. Its treatment of former

colonies, restricting tariff-free

trade to “primary produce” so

that the profitable part of the

businesses–manufacture–is

protected, means that they may

be politically independent, but

economically are still colonies.

Take Ghana–buy abar of

“Fairtrade” Divine chocolate,

and on the back it waxes

lyrical about Kuapa Kokoo,

the cocoa farmers’ organisation

that tries to guarantee fair

prices for cocoa beans, with

abit extra for the social

premium. Read to the end of

the small print where it says:

“Made in Germany”. Ghana

has aperfectly good chocolate

factory, in the town of Tema,

but it only makes chocolate for

the local market, because that

is all it is allowed to do. Ghana

would bealot richer if it could

sell the manufactured product

over here, but that would be in

competition with the German

manufacturer, which the EU

protects. That is whyIvoted

Leave in the referendum –

thoughIprobably would not

do so again, as Brexit is

unlikely to improve the

situation.

Tim Gossling, Cambridge

Police aren’t enough

To The Times

It will be uselessfor Boris

Johnson’sgovernment to

recruit 20,000 new police

officers unless there is a

corresponding “investment”

(sorry, Mr Rees-Mogg) in

the criminal justice system,

which has had 40% of its

funding cut since 1997.

Over the past five years,

Ihave seen courts close, the

patently guilty walking free

because of some failure by the

prosecution, the arguably

innocent pleading guilty

because they cannot afford

representation, prosecutors

without the resources to do

aproper job, andacollapse

in morale in the legal

professionals who try to

prop upabroken system.

There are no youngsters

coming up through the

criminal justice system

because they see their

seniors working for less than

the minimum wage on some

of the most harrowing of cases;

understandably, they want no

part of it.

This has the gravest

consequences for the future,

as it is from the criminal

practitioners that future judges

are largely drawn.

Tim Concannon, Portsmouth

Bleeding money

To The Guardian

TheNHS spen t£76mona

plan to close four acute

hospitals and then decided the

plan was no longer viable

because of “continued growth

in the demand for acute care”.

I’m losing the will to live.

Dennis Hawkins, Leominster,

Herefordshire

3August 2019 THE WEEK

LETTERS

Pick of the week’s correspondence

©MATT/DAILY TELEGRAPH

“We’re advising people to

work from home today.

One person who took that

advice is the driver of the

8.37 to Waterloo...”

●Letters have been edited

Exchange of the week

Is HS2 really worth the money?

To The Daily Telegraph

Thecasefor HS2issimple:we need more rail capacity north

of London.“Upgrades” and hi-tech signalling will not suffice;

we need another set of tracks, which should cater for high-

speed trains so that the existing railway can do what it is good

at –commuter, intercity and freight services–while long-

distance journey times are reduced.

Starting in the south is right, as this is where the capacity

problem is worst. Starting in the north would add little value,

as extra trains could not reach either London or Birmingham

on existing lines.

As to cost, we must ask: is the development of the northern

section dependent on the completion of the southern section

(phase one), or is it possible to divert funds to the northern

section now, where potential changes to scope and

specification may improve cost-effectiveness?

William Barter, Towcester, Northamptonshire

To TheSunda yTimes

After the recent 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, we

learn that the mission cost £160bn, at today’s prices, to travel

477,710 miles. The cost of HS2 is projected to exceed £85bn

for a660-mile return journey. That is £335,000amile to go to

the Moon and back, against almost £129mamile on HS2. Is it

not time to cut our losses?

Keith Charlton, Goulceby, Lincolnshire