23rd June 2023

Mr Buckland,

We are writing to you as part of our actions for World Refill Day.

The case for moving towards reuse / zero waste from single-use is clear. Plastic recycling, chemical recycling, waste-to energy / incineration, landfill, and exporting waste are false solutions which pollute, use energy and resources such as water, and disproportionately impact poorer people. Plastic pollution is a key factor in disease, climate change, and mass extinction. To deal with it, it is imperative to reduce plastic production.

Legislation introduced by the government so far has been inadequate; a slow, piecemeal approach which enables plastic production to keep expanding. This profits and empowers the oil and gas industries, funders of the Conservative Party. As people rise up against government corruption and corporate greed to deal with environmental and social crises, the government are attempting to remove human rights, control communications, end peaceful protest, imprison activists etc.

We ask that you stop serving wealthy, powerful corporate interests and instead serve the public interest by protecting the health of the planet which sustains us. With regards to plastic pollution, that means implementing strong legislation to timetable the reduction of plastic production.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Bell
Plastic Free Swindon co-ordinator

23rd June 2023

Dear Ben,

Many thanks for emailing me about this.

I would suggest that you can make your argument against the use of plastic without accuse me of “serving wealthy, powerful corporate interests”. I serve the interests of South Swindon and its people as the MP for this area.

Robert Buckland MP

28th June 2023

Mr Buckland,

There is overwhelming evidence that you serve wealthy, powerful corporate interests over the public's best interests. Gross levels of economic inequality emanate from this corrupt government's policies. For the people of south Swindon and around the UK, that means poverty, food banks, poor mental health, children going hungry, huge queues for the NHS because of its underhanded privatisation, inadequate wages, inadequate welfare, ecological crisis, diminished trust, a culture of fear, increased crime... The government ruin the lives of millions of people and imperil us all, for greed and power. The public are manipulated by propaganda spread through the mainstream, corporate-owned media. The lies told to justify austerity, for instance, have enabled the government to cut council funding and sell off public assets.

You claim to "serve the interests of South Swindon and its people as the MP for this area". To serve those people, it's imperative to listen. To the grandparents who are so frustrated and distraught that the government continues to avoid taking affirmative action on the environment that they get involved in blocking oil deliveries. To the young people who are so desperately worried about their future that they chain themselves to motorway bridges. Instead of listening, the government, of which you are part, are working to silence such people, criminalise them, remove the right to peacefully protest, remove human rights, impose mass surveillance, control communications, undermine democracy... (detailed through the work of Liberty Human Rights Organisation, for example). How does any of that "serve the interests of South Swindon and its people"? Indeed it doesn't. It does serve wealthy, corporate interests. I stand by by my assertion.

Ben Bell
Plastic Free Swindon co-ordinator

23rd June 2022

Mr Tomlinson,

We are writing to you as part of our actions for World Refill Day.

The case for moving towards reuse / zero waste from single-use is clear. Plastic recycling, chemical recycling, waste-to energy / incineration, landfill, and exporting waste are false solutions which pollute, use energy and resources such as water, and disproportionately impact poorer people. Plastic pollution is a key factor in disease, climate change, and mass extinction. To deal with it, it is imperative to reduce plastic production.

Legislation introduced by the government so far has been inadequate; a slow, piecemeal approach which enables plastic production to keep expanding. This profits and empowers the oil and gas industries, funders of the Conservative Party. As people rise up against government corruption and corporate greed to deal with environmental and social crises, the government are attempting to remove human rights, control communications, end peaceful protest, imprison activists etc.

We ask that you stop serving wealthy, powerful corporate interests and instead serve the public interest by protecting the health of the planet which sustains us. With regards to plastic pollution, that means implementing strong legislation to timetable the reduction of plastic production.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Bell
Plastic Free Swindon co-ordinator