£62 Million From Taxpayers For Wooden Bottles – Watts Up With That?

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Ian Magness

It’s only taxpayers’ money!!

From the Telegraph:

Britain’s National Wealth Fund, which is fully owned by the Treasury, on Wednesday announced a £43.5m investment into Cambridgeshire-based start-up Pulpex, which makes recyclable water bottles out of wood pulp.

The investment will help finance Pulpex’s plan to build its first ever manufacturing plant, near Glasgow, which is expected to produce 50m wooden bottles each year and create 35 jobs in Scotland.

The wood-based bottles have a lower carbon footprint than plastic or glass and Ian Murray, the Scottish Secretary, said the investment would “aid the decarbonisation of our packaging industry and help accelerate our net zero goals as we drive delivery of clean power by 2030”.

The Scottish National Investment Bank, which is fully owned by the Scottish Government, is investing £10m alongside the National Wealth Fund and Pulpex ultimately hopes to raise £62m.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, hailed the investment as “welcome news” that was “creating jobs, sustainable growth and opportunity in Scotland”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/19/taxpayer-cash-ploughed-wooden-bottles-labours-net-zero

For some reason the Telegraph treats this as a serious idea, and not the scandalous waste of taxpayer money.

£62 million for 35 jobs? That’s nearly £2 million a job. It’s utterly crazy.

And Pulpex will need will need to chop down a lot of trees, which will do far more damage to the environment that a bit of carbon dioxide from glass or plastic.

The whole idea is flawed anyway – who is actually going to bother recycling these wooden bottles anyway?

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