I WRITE in response to the letter from Francis Ray about R4C – “Please save us from the R4C proposal”.

He describes the proposal as smoke and mirrors but I am afraid that it is the pro-incinerator lobby who are promoting the use of smoke and mirrors.

Smoke to make waste ‘disappear’ and mirrors to try and stop the Earth from warming up as a result of all the oil-based plastic we would be burning, if we failed to recycle as much of it as we could!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with R4C’s proposal that we should be reusing and recycling every possible gram of what we throw away.

Methods of recovery are improving year on year and new products are coming onto the market which use recyclable or biodegradable alternatives rather than hard-to-recycle plastic.

(If you doubt this, try the Live Plastic Free challenge. Try not buying anything, either made of, or wrapped in, plastic. It is not as difficult as it sounds).

If the incinerator goes ahead I will refuse to send my rubbish to it.

I don’t have much anyway and in a post-incinerator world I will just make sure that I don’t buy anything that can’t be recycled.

If people did this in large numbers, I suspect that the the incinerator would not be able to operate economically.

Unfortunately council tax payer’s would still have to foot the bill.

Frances Griffiths

Gloucester