Have you ever thought about how much rubbish you and your family throw
away every week?
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
Every year UK households throw away the equivalent of 3½ million
double-decker buses (almost 30 million tonnes), a queue of which would
stretch from London to Sydney (Australia) and back.
On average, each person in the UK throws away seven times their body
weight (about 500kg) of rubbish every year
On average, every family in the UK consumes around 330 glass bottles
and jars a year (British Glass).
Recycling two bottles saves enough energy to boil water for five cups
of tea.
Every year, an estimated 17½ billion plastic bags are given
away by supermarkets.
This is equivalent to over 290 bags for every person in the UK.
1 litre of oil can pollute 1 million litres of fresh drinking water
(Scottish Oil Care Campaign).
Waste oil from nearly 3 million car oil changes in Britain is not
collected. If collected properly, this could meet the annual energy
needs of 1.5 million people. (Scottish Oil Care Campaign)
About one fifth of the contents of household dustbins consists of
paper and card, of which half is newspapers and magazines. This is equivalent
to over 4kg of waste paper per household in the UK each week.
Disposable nappies make up about 2 % of the average household rubbish.
This is equivalent to the weight of nearly 70,000 double decker buses
every year. If lined up front to end, the buses would stretch from London
to Edinburgh.