A really rubbish lesson!

Amazing facts about waste and recycling

A presentation from BritishRecycledProducts.co.uk

(with help from the internet!)

The UK produces more than 434 million tonnes of waste every year.

This rate of rubbish generation would fill the Albert Hall in London

in less than 2 hours.

On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every seven

weeks.

It takes just 25 two litre drink bottles to make one adult size fleece.

70% less energy is required to recycle paper compared with making it from raw materials

As much as 50% of waste in the average dustbin could be

composted.

Up to 80% of a vehicle can be recycled.

£36,000,000 worth of aluminium cans are thrown away each year .

Container glass (bottles and jars) is 100% recyclable and can be

used again and again and again and again and again forever...

It takes 24 trees to make 1 ton of newspaper.

Every tonne of paper that's recycled can save enough

energy to power a 3 bedroom house for a whole year.

More than 30 million inkjet cartridges are dumped each year in the UK alone, the equivalent weight

of 18 blue whales.

White office and typing paper are recyclable but the average office

worker throws away their own weight each year.

We use over six billion glass bottles and jars each year. It would take you over three and a half thousand years

to sing "Six Billion Green Bottles"!

Because of its value, gold has always been recycled. Modern

jewellery and dental crowns could contain gold that was mined in

prehistoric times

Composting is the only form of recycling that everyone

can do at home.

The worms in compost heaps eat their body weight every 2 days.

Most of the car park bollards in supermarkets in the UK are made

from recycled plastic waste.

Millions of steel cans are collected every day by huge magnets that pull them out of

dustbin waste.

Every year UK households throw away the equivalent of 3 ½ million double-

decker buses (almost 30 million tonnes), a queue of which would stretch from

London to Sydney (Australia) and back.

We don’t know how long glass takes to break down but it is so

long that glass made in the Middle East over 3000 years ago can still

be found today.

Even with such great charity shops, Britain only recycles

2 to 4% of its clothing.

We bury 80% of our rubbish in landfill sites.

Switzerland buries only 7%.

Every disposable nappy that has ever been thrown away still

exists in Landfill Sites.

It takes 3,000 used plastic bottles to make one picnic table.

If all the aluminium cans sold in the UK were recycled, there would be 12 million fewer full

wheelie bins each year.

In just six weeks, your drinks can could be recycled into parts of a plane, car,

fridge… or simply another can.

In just seven days the paper you recycle could be back on your breakfast table updating you with all the latest news.

Low grade glass can be recycled into special sand for golf courses to

use in their bunkers.

You can make 20 cans out of recycled material with the same

amount of energy it takes to make one new one.

Around 125,000 tonnes of plastic packaging will be thrown away over

Christmas - that's the equivalent weight of more than 50,000 polar bears!

Every year we use about 8 million Christmas trees, most of which get thrown away in January, generating

over 12,000 tonnes of rubbish.

The average useful life of a plastic carrier bag is 12 minutes yet they take between 500 to 1,000 years to break

down in a landfill site.

Recycling rates for plastic bags are extremely low.

Only 1 to 3% of plastic bags end up getting recycled.

Old car tyres can be recycled into athletics tracks.

Ultra-modern, energy efficient homes called Earthships use up to 2000 old

car tyres in their walls

Find out what can be recycled where you live

Enter your postcode at

recyclenow.com(There are lots of other cool things there too.)

Thanks for watching!