RECYCLING INFORMATION                            News Information

General Recycling

• Landfill waste density is typically considered to be 0.7 - 0.85 tonnes/m3. For degraded waste, the density rises to 0.86 - 1 tonnes/m3 [source: UK Gov.]
• 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 7 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.
• Rubbish collection and keeping our streets clean costs council tax payers about £1.6 billion per year.
• Nine out of ten people in England and Wales would recycle more if it was made easier.

Metal Recycling

Aluminium

• If all the aluminium drinks cans sold in the UK were recycled, there would be 14 million fewer full dustbins per year.
• If all of the aluminium cans recycled in the UK in 1998 were laid end to end, they would stretch from Land's End to John O'Groats more than 160 times.
• In the UK, 75% of all drinks cans are made of aluminium.
• In 2001 we got through a whopping 5 billion cans – and recycled 42% of them. That’s well up on 1989’s figure of 2%, but still 3 billion cans went to landfill unnecessarily.
• 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.
• Amazingly, recycling it 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. So get recycling!
• 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.

Glass Recycling

• 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 [source: Surrey County Council ]
• The UK has more than 50,000 bottle banks.
• One bottle bank can hold up to 3,000 bottles before it needs to be emptied.
• We use around 2.5 million tonnes of container glass in the UK. Around 629,000 tonnes of that may be imported.
• In 2005 we recycled 1,259,000 tonnes of used glass (known as ‘cullet’).
• Container glass for bottles and jars makes up around 80% of the UK’s recycled glass market.
• Any glass product can use up to 80% recycled material.
• Probably the most important thing about recycling glass is the energy saving – when using recycled glass to make new containers, 315Kg of CO2 is saved for every tonne of recycled glass used.
• Making glass bottles and jars from recycled ones saves energy. The energy saving from recycling one bottle will:
 
- Power a 100 watt light bulb for almost an hour
 - Power a computer for 20 minutes
 - Power a colour TV for 15 minutes
 - Power a washing machine for 10 minutes.

Paper Recycling

• On average, each person in the UK uses over 200 kg of paper per year. 61 % of this is recycled, however 79 % is realistically achievable.
• We use 12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard every year in the UK.
• Over Christmas as much as 83 km2 of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey.
• Around 20% of all the household rubbish we throw away is paper and card , and approximately half of this is made up of newspapers and magazines, most of which can be recycled
• The average person gets through around 38kg of newspapers each year
• Recycled paper made up 75.5% of the raw materials for UK newspapers in 2004

Textiles Recycling

• If every Briton purchased one item made from recycled wool a year it would save 371 million gallons of water, 480 tonnes of chemical dyes and 4571 million days of an average family's electricity needs [source: UK Gov]
• Nearly 3 billion nappies are thrown away in the UK every year. 90% of these end up in landfill, where they could take hundreds of years to decompose.
• Present clothes banks are only operating at about 25% capacity.
• Total arising of textile waste are estimated to be between 550,000 and 900,000 tonnes per year, with most of this coming from household sources.

Plastic Recycling

• The UK produces 3 million tonnes of plastic waste each year. Approximately 85% is landfilled, 8% incinerated and 7% recycled
• 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
• 150 million plastic carrier bags are used in the UK each week —they can take up to 500 years to decay in landfill.

Green Waste Recycling

• Every tonne of biodegradable waste produces 300-500 cubic metres of landfill gas
• Landfill sites released 20% of the UK's methane emissions in 2002.