Interesting facts

General Recycling

• Each UK household produces over 1 tonne of rubbish annually, amounting to about 31 million tonnes for the UK each year [source: Waste Watch]
• Every year, the average dustbin contains enough unrealised energy for 500 baths, 3500 showers or 5,000 hours of television. [source: www.assurre.org]
• On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every 7 weeks [source: Waste Watch]
• Every 8 months the UK produces enough waste to fill Lake Windermere (the largest lake in England) [source: Waste Watch]
• In less than 2 hours the UK produces enough waste to fill the Albert Hall
  [source: Waste Watch]
• The cost of managing the municipal waste produced in England is around £1.6 billion per year [Source: Waste not, Want not; Cabinet Office, 2002]

Plastic Recycling

• Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for six hours [Source: Recoup]
• It takes just 25 two litre pop bottles to make one adult size fleece jacket [Source: WRAP]
• 13 billion plastic carrier bags are used in the UK each year. [source: Defra]