The annual Lewes raft race is on July 1st — Ouseday as it’s now called — and the organisers have come up with a new slogan: ‘Think Before You Throw’. Last year eggs, fireworks and even a frozen chicken were among the objects hurled at the raftsmen, but the message refers to plastic pollution as well as dangerous missiles. It’s a message that could be applied globally: ‘Think Before You Throw Away’. As the ecological campaigner Julia Butterfly Hill has famously said, ‘There is no “away”.‘ Whether we put plastic in the bin or in the recycling or whether we don’t, it’s still going to be somewhere. It doesn’t biodegrade (unless it’s not actually plastic) and it doesn’t evaporate. Obviously we need to consume less of it but what to do about the billions of tonnes that are already out there?

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