WHEN John Major said "the polluter will pay," he obviously meant that the cost of cleaning up pollution would be placed at the door of the main polluter.

For some time, the education of our children has been interrupted by the collection of metal cans, often encouraged, if not organised, by some teachers. The pretext being that the money realised would go towards school funds or some other worthwhile cause.

A more lucrative way of dealing with this problem would be to persuade the drinks manufacturers to charge a 5p deposit on all drinks cans, steel or aluminium, with a printed notice stating that the retailer whose name and address would also appear on the can would repay the customer the 5p. These cans could then be returned to the manufacturer by the retailer who would recoup the deposits.

The end product would be a tidier environment, more cans returned and/or recycled and, hopefully, more money for good causes.

Also, teachers and pupils would have more time to pursue their main function of education instead of collecting scrap metal.

An unwillingness to voluntarily introduce this scheme would be construed as deliberate pollution and a suitable charge laid on the polluters.

K BUTLER, Haston Lee Avenue, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.