There is far too much talk and not enough action about international environmental issues. Governments talk about climate change and their intentions are probably very good, but we are simply not seeing them deliver on their promises. Two years ago, a UK client wanted to purchase some water storage units for their business, and their requirement was for units that were made in the UK from UK recycled plastic. They searched the Internet for suitable products and found them on a government website: ‘water butts made from UK recycled plastic’ seemed to fit the bill, but we decided to find out where the UK plastic was actually recycled.

We found that the plastic was indeed collected from locations across the UK, but then shipped across to China where it was converted into plastic water storage units that were then shipped back to be sold in the UK. We challenged the government organisation on the true ethics of the situation, and it they justified themselves because ‘otherwise the containers coming from China would return empty’. Would it not have been better to convert the UK plastic in a UK factory, which would be both kinder to the environment in terms of transport fuel usage and simultaneously create employment? Then those ‘empty’ containers could be shipped to China full of UK made plastic water butts to sell into that important and rapidly growing economy. Or is that just naive?