The plastics industry is offering schools curricula that cast plastics as safe, recyclable, and a source of good jobs. Critics say it’s propaganda.
Page A7From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 1 September 2026
Plastic companies write lesson plans as UK lets West Bank settler violence slide
Plastic companies write the lesson plans, and the UK lets settler violence slide—two receipts, one mechanism. Institutions shrug at the conflict, then hand over the curriculum to the highest bidder. The lesson taught isn’t about science, ethics, or diplomacy—it’s about who holds the pen. The stakes aren’t abstract; they live in the classroom and the occupied territory. The desk drawer holds the syllabus, the news cycle moves on, and the consequences wait for someone to tally them. The fold is the punchline: the institutions tasked with protecting standards and lives are the same ones outsourcing the job to whoever pays.
“When the people who sell plastic teach your kids, the lesson isn’t science—it’s sales. The UK shrugs at settler violence, then shrugs again at the syllabus. The stakes are in the desk drawer and the news cycle.”
“Industry-designed lesson plans are just a way to encourage engagement in STEM. The UK’s approach to West Bank issues is simply pragmatic. Pragmatic, yes—that’s the word I meant. Both are just practical choices, not endorsements.”
The receipts
This weekend brought yet another surge in the endless surge of Israeli violence in the Palestinian territories. But as the EU and UK get increasingly vocal over settler attacks in the West Bank, it’s well past the time that action, rather…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.