I try, in general, to be as green as I can possibly be. I turn off all lights that are not needed, I try (where the other half permits) to turn the heating down to a minimum. I recycle all our glass, papers and tin cans and all the cuttings etc go in our brown bin for composting. I walk most places (unfortunately I need a car to go to work, 60 mile round trip, with little or no public transport as an alternative), and yes we did go to New York for a holiday but a flight every decade is probably not over doing it. I raise this point because there are a lot of people in the Highlands who would like to recycle plastic. I am aware that this is difficult and quite costly, because there are so many different grades of plastic recycling. So with that in mind the question was raised if there would be a plastic recycling facility between the 2 councils of Moray and the Highlands, apparently not, too expensive was the reply. So what did our illustrious Council and Scottish executive do? Spend 16 million quid on Gaelic ( a language that is spoken by less than 3% of the population), we can have dual language road signs but I can't recycle plastic. I am all for preserving cultures, but at what cost. I feel the planet could probably do without a TV channel devoted exclusively to Gaelic, but another landfill site full of plastic bottles it most definitely doesn't need. As it happens due to the lack of landfill sites the rubbish that isn't recyclable is driven by very large lorries from Inverness through to Aberdeen ( a round trip journey of some 200 miles) every day. Very green I don't think. I am sure that given the chance, and with a bit of mandatory law thrown in, people would recycle most things. As we became more aware of the waste, the pressure would grow on the supermarkets and manufactures to stop wrapping everything in a ton of plastic, less plastic use, less chemical and oil and coal  use (see wikipedia entry for how plastic is made). The longer then would our natural resources last. I am not a miltant tree hugger, but I like to do my little bit, and if everbody did a little bit, I am sure that it would soon amount to a very big bit. Anyway I am now preaching.

Cheerio