• Each UK household produces over 1 tonne of rubbish annually, amounting to about 31 million tonnes for the UK each year.
• Every year, the average dustbin contains enough unrealised energy for 500 baths, 3500 showers or 5,000 hours of television.
• On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every seven weeks.
• Every 8 months the UK produces enough waste to fill Lake Windermere (the largest lake in England).
• In less than 2 hours the UK produces enough waste to fill the Albert Hall.
• On average, 16% of the money you spend on a product pays for the packaging, which ultimately ends up as rubbish.
• As much as 50% of waste in the average dustbin could be composted.
• Up to 80% of a vehicle can be recycled.
• We get through nearly 3 billion disposable nappies each year in the UK alone and around 90% of these end up on landfill sites.
• Disposable nappies take 500 years to decompose.
• 7 million trees are cut down every year just to make disposable nappies.
  
• Over 20,000 tonnes of batteries are sent to landfill site in the UK each year. It takes 50 times more energy to make a battery than it gives during its life.
• Nine out of ten people in England and Wales would recycle more if it was made easier.
  

Recycling – some more facts:

Paper

• Recycled paper produces 73% less air pollution than if it was made from raw materials.
• 12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard are used annually in the UK.
• The average person in the UK gets through 38kg of newspapers per year.
• Over Christmas as much as 83 square kilometres of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey
• It takes 24 trees to make 1 ton of newspaper.
• About one fifth of the contents of household dustbins consist of paper and card, of which nearly half is newspapers and magazines. This is equivalent to over 4kg of waste paper and card per household in the UK each week.
• Recycled paper made up 80.6% of the raw materials for UK newspapers by the end of 2006.
• Every tonne of paper recycled saves 17 trees.

Glass

• The largest glass furnaces produce more than 400 tonnes – that's more than one million bottles and jars - each day!
• Glass can be recycled again and again without losing its clarity or purity
• Milk bottles are reused an average of 13 times before recycling.
• The energy saving from recycling one bottle will:
  • Power a 100 watt light bulb for almost an hour
  • Power a computer for 25 minutes
  • Power a colour TV for 20 minutes
  • Power a washing machine for 10 minutes
    

Aluminium

• If all the aluminium drinks cans sold in the UK were recycled, there would be 14 million fewer full dustbins per year
• Producing steel from recycled material saves 75% of the energy needed for steel made from virgin material.
• Every steel can is 100% recyclable. It can be recycled over and over again into products like bicycles and of course new cans
• Aluminium cans can be recycled and ready to use in just 6 weeks.
• It’s better news in industry – larger aluminium products, used in buildings and vehicles for example, have a 95% recycling rate. That’s simply because they’re more valuable.
• Recycling a can requires only 5% of the energy it takes to make new aluminium – and produces only 5% of the CO2 emissions.
• Just one recycled aluminium can saves enough energy to run a television set for three hours!

Steel

• In industry, steel recycling is common – ‘home scrap’ generated by the steel manufacturing process is re-melted and used over and over again. It never leaves the mill, refinery or foundry.
• At home, we get through around 500,000 tonnes of steel packaging for our food – that’s about 12 billion cans - or 600 per home - but 9 billion of these still go to landfill.
• The good news is that we’re getting better recycling them – in 2003 we recycled 44% of steel packaging, including 3 billion steel cans! The government target is to increase that to 54% by 2008.
• Producing steel from recycled material saves 75% of the energy needed for steel made from virgin material.
• Every steel can is 100% recyclable. It can be recycled over and over again into products like bicycles and of course new cans.
  

Plastic

• 275,000 tonnes of plastic are used each year in the UK, that’s about 15 million bottles per day.
• Most families throw away about 40kg of plastic per year, which could otherwise be recycled.
• The use of plastic in Western Europe is growing about 4% each year.
• Plastic can take up to 500 years to decompose.
• Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for six hours.
• It takes just 25 two litre pop bottles to make one adult size fleece jacket.