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Not all good news

About plastic and glass bottles recycling and the introduction of deposits on the both plastic and glass containers. What a good idea to charge a deposit on the containers just as it wasin the 60s with beer and pop bottles. Has the wheel finally turned 180 degrees from a throwaway to reusable society? But already overtures for price increases are being made.

However, are the price increases being sounded out, is it just an opportunity for an overall cost up and increased profits camouflage in the form of the re-cycling costs etc when the recycled plastic containers will become the base material for more plastic containers? Thus cost down on raw material costs and glass bottles will be washed and reprocessed thus reducing the requirement for 100% new bottles down to approximately 10-20% new bottles.

The other question is what impact this will have on the manufacturers of the plastic and glass containers and will we see closures of UK plastic and glass container manufacturers, with the result that the containers will be coming in from overseas?

John Rolfe, Finchdale, Covingham

It’s no joke

Whilst I totally agree with Mr Burchall on going after litter louts and Therese Coffey that littering blights our communities, let’s get it into perspective - the people who do throw rubbish out of cars are either too thick to fullly understand the implications of their actions and the consequences to clear the rubbish, or because of their upbringing they think in their own small minded way it’s the norm - “Who cares? I’m not going to have to clean it up.”

It’s a sign of the times. I’m afraid this country has turned into the nanny state, the courts are afraid, the police are powerless - they nick ‘em, the courts let them go, which takes me back to the litter louts - the spokesman and spokeswoman in the piece on March 29th failed to actually tell us how you are going to enforce this; are you going to have an SBC employee on every street, watching every car. Please let us know how. 

John L Crook, Haydon Wick, Swindon

Who will police it?

I see that fines for littering are to increase and people who dispose of litter from vehicles will be penalised.

Reader, Rob Derry suggests, quite correctly, that without policing no one will be caught. I think that is the crux of the matter! As with the use of mobile phones, I still see drivers on mobile phones and they are fairly confident that they will not be caught. During the snowy weather, I saw a police car drive past vehicles which had the registration plates covered in snow. Were they stopped and penalised? No! So how is littering from vehicles going to be policed? Perhaps the extra pounds on Council Tax will help solve the problems.

I have lots of time for our refuse collectors, out in all winds and weathers, playing ‘catch up’ when things get behind but when following the lorries, I see loads of litter blowing off of the vehicle. The design of the vehicle does not help I suppose and the operatives cannot make sure that all collectables are safely contained within the vehicle at all times. So, who, what and how do we see the policing of these issues?

“I’m sorry officer, I had the window open and the wind caught the rubbish on the dashboard and blew it out of the window, so I didn’t actually throw it out.”

Chris Gleed, Proud Close, Purton

It was just about me

On Thurs 29th March Robert Webb wrote a letter about propaganda and mentioned me as someone spreading “lighter propaganda and general rumours” that the whole of North Swindon has bad TV reception.

Please read my letter again Mr Webb. I said that MY reception is awful which it is, and I then said “I know I’m not alone” in having such a poor service. I did not include the “whole of North Swindon” at all. All I know is when the weather is bad, a car goes by, a plane goes over, anything electrical goes on or off in my house it is unwatchable for anything between 20 seconds and several minutes.

How the rest of the TV’s in North Swindon react I have no idea and didn’t claim to.

Roger Lack, North Swindon