Letter: Throw-away plastic dome bodes ill for a green millennium
Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
Sir: Andrew Marr is right in saying that any millennium event should have a great purpose and be forward looking ("Under the Dome: a serious proposal", 2 July). As he says, a truly environmental festival would achieve that.
But the proposed Greenwich Dome is about as far from an acceptable setting for an environmental exhibition as it's possible to get (short of siting the whole thing at Sellafield). Despite Tony Blair saying he wants the Millennium Dome "to leave a lasting legacy", and the Millennium Commission saying it is "inconceivable that the Dome will be demolished", the fact is that this is a temporary, throw-away, plastic structure. The Dome is going to be made of PVC-coated polyester. PVC is being banned or phased out in many European countries, and has been found to be justifiably described as an "environmental poison" by the Austrian Supreme Court.
A PVC Dome represents everything an environmental exhibition would be challenging. This disposable, but not reusable or recycleable Dome of Doom, a source of dioxins in its manufacture and disposal, represents a throwaway, plastic, polluting past. It would make a laughing-stock not only of any environmental exhibition, but of the whole country.
PETER MELCHETT
Executive Director
Greenpeace
London N1
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments