SIMON Gurney (Readers Times, September 4) is quite right to draw attention to the failure of businesses selling - and governments advocating - so-called ‘green’ products to take any account of the environmental costs of both manufacture and eventual disposal of the items concerned, and their refusal to claim only the net environmental benefit, as I believe they should.

We talk about ‘eco-friendly’ little cars, as if they had been made of recycled cardboard, had sails instead of engines, and had tyres moulded from disused cabbages.

If we applied the same quite ridiculous calculation to, for example, the plastic Christmas tree, we would have to regard it as totally benign as it has absolutely zero harmful emissions: at least in the period after manufacture and before we come to dispose of it.

To highlight the argument for ‘netting’ of any claimed environmental benefits, I would suggest that your readers might wish to consider the city of Norilsk.

Formerly, a remote mining camp in the Russian gulag system, it has really sprung into industrial prominence only within the last 20 or 30 years. A few facts: Norilsk is accepted by the UN as being among the six most polluted areas on the planet; Life expectancy of any poor child born in Norilsk today - 35 to 40; Acid rain has virtually obliterated the surrounding forest - to a radius of nearly 200 miles; All food has to be brought in from outside the region; Norilsk is ‘closed’ by the Russian authorities to all foreign access.

So what on earth goes on there?

Quite simply, this unfortunate city sits right on top of one of the world’s biggest deposits of palladium.

So why do we continue to mine and process palladium if it does all this damage? Quite simply, it’s so we can all be more environmentally friendly. Over 60% of the world’s production of palladium goes into one product - the catalytic converter now fitted to virtually all cars.

So there we are - now we can all drive around patting ourselves on the back because our exhaust emissions are lower.

GEOFF RICHMOND, Withington, Hereford.