Help save planet for all our grandchildren, urges Charles

The Prince of Wales, President and Royal Founding Patron of Business in the Community (BITC) prepares to cut a birthday cake while attending the Business in the Community Waste-to-Wealth Summit at the Southwark Integrated Waste Management Facility in London.

“We are the first generation to understand, in full and terrifying scientific detail, that we are destroying our world. And we are the last to be able to do something about it,” Charles told a London conference of his organisation Business in the Community. It saw representatives of Sky, Greggs, Heineken, Iceland, Toyota and other major brands signing up to a commitment to double the UK’s productivity of resources and reduce avoidable waste by 2030.

The Prince told them: “If we do not act, our children and grandchildren will not be able to sort out the mess.

“So with three much-loved grandchildren and a new grandchild on the way – and some of you may be in the same situation – I do not want to miss that opportunity and I am sure you do not either.”

He added: “In the last five years, 12.5m computers have ended up in British landfill sites. Yet the infrastructure to collect, reuse and recycle already exists. One man’s, or business’s waste, can be another’s raw materials.”