Sir, - May I suggest that no action by any organisation or group will ever be successful in combating the problem while we, as individuals, continue to feel that we have an inherent right to throw our rubbish wherever and whenever we please.
As commuters, it is our right to use public transport, train and bus stations and the streets as our own personal rubbish bins. As car drivers, it is our right to throw anything discardable out of the window.
If we work on building sites, it is our right to make sure that every scrap of discarded plastic is left attached to fences and shrubbery. As office workers, it is an accepted right to work at dirty work-stations and decorate work-surfaces with food encrusted delph and empty sandwich wrappers.
As day-trippers, it is our right to deface the countryside, shorelines and waterways with empty beer cans, bottles and used condoms. Our right as farmers to pollute the land and rivers with rusting scrap metal, industrial plastics and chemicals is more important than the right of the wildlife and fish to live.
So, forget about local authorities or introducing a tax on plastic. We Irish stand over our right to be selfish, dirty, unashamed litter-louts and nobody will ever take that away from us. - Yours, etc., Caitriona O'Connell,
Blackrock, Co Dublin.