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Dear Scrutiny
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to let you know how we feel the island could get better at reducing the use of plastic and better at recycling. My oldest daughter has debated this with her class this year at school so it is a hot topic in our house and she was keen to contribute to this research you are doing so I said we would write together to you. (She is 10 and attends Jersey College Prep)
We really feel a major let down is actually what we plastic we are able to recycle here in Jersey. When we visit friends in England and see them tearing the plastic lids out of tissue boxes etc putting every bit of plastic from their household rubbish into their recycling it saddened us to realize we could only recycle bottles. Please can you help Jersey to become better at recycling? It is almost impossible to stop people buying food in plastic punnets / wrap so to be able to recycle what we are stuck with until alternatives are used would be a fabulous start.
Also a relatively easy thing to do would be to ban all plastic bags on the island. Think of the positive publicity the island would get! There are so many other counties that have successfully achieved this it seems crazy we haven't yet! Same for plastic drinking straws, just don't allow people to sell them anymore!
Reducing plastic use is a tricky one but you could lead by example and only allow states departments to use reusable glasses instead of plastic water cups / reduce the number of bins used in offices therefore reducing the number of bin bags wasted when cleaners change them every day. Schools should be made to do the same! States schools should be encouraged to have plastic free lunches both for ones bought into school from home and also hot lunches provided or canteens should be made to buy in the compostable veg ware type of product.
These are just some little ideas but they could make a big difference! Kind regards
Sarah and Bea Thorogood