Recycling Articles : UK rubbish facts, stats & figures

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The majority of people never stop and give a thought to what they are actually throwing away, they just lift the lid on their wheelie bin and in it goes, regardless of what it is. However the government and local councils are soon going to be putting a stop to all this and encouraging people to recycle more by way of introducing fines, pay as you throw schemes and monitoring what is actually put into the wheelie bin.

These are just some of the ways you will be encouraged to stop and take notice of what you actually throw away; here are amazing facts on what the majority of us throw into our wheelie bin without giving it a second thought and rubbish in general.

To start with the total population of the UK throws away 334 million tonnes of rubbish each and every single year. To make it easier to understand the quantity of just how much rubbish this adds up to, if you were to tip the rubbish into the Royal Albert Hall in London then it would fill it in less than 2 hours.

To put it another way the weight of the rubbish which we in the UK throw away every year adds up to the weight of 3½ million double decker buses. This is roughly 30 million tonnes, and if you were to stretch this out and line it up then it reaches from London to Australia and back again.

Every single person in the UK will throw away roughly 7 times the amount their body weighs each year.

The majority of families in the UK will consume at least 330 glass bottles and jars each and every year, this is made up of such things as pop, vinegar, sauce, pickles etc.

If you were to recycle just two of these bottles from the rubbish instead of just throwing them into the wheelie bin then this would give you enough fuel to boil water to make five cups of tea or coffee.

It is thought that today the production of plastic is over 20 times more as is the use of plastic than it was 50 years ago and this has led to around 17½ billion carrier bags being used in supermarkets every year. This equates to around 290 carrier bags per year for every person that lives in the UK.

If 1 litre of oil gets tipped into fresh drinking water then it can pollute around 1 million litres. The amount of oil that the people in the UK waste every year from around 3 million car oil changes could meet the energy needs of around 1.5 million people every year.

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