numbers schmubers

Initially I thought that because our green recycling bin has more in it each week than our rubbish bin, we must be doing something right, but thinking about it further it is still worrying that two adults and a dog can more or less fill three big wheelie-bins every two weeks. That's an awful lot of waste - in the truest sense of the word. Now I've never been a big fan of statistics, partly because I have always had severe mathsaphobia and a general distrust of numbers in general, but mainly because I used to bend and twist statistics for a living. It was mainly honourable and on behalf of good organisations but when you work in public relations, you learn that stats are never bad. You just spin them to suit your own argument. Some stats are pretty compelling - see the previous post - and there's no way to spin the obscenity of our consumption. Here are some more figures from Waste Online that may be guesstimates, but should still give us all pause for thought.

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 3 ½ 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) in rubbish every year.

Glass

On average, every family in the UK consumes around 330 glass bottles and jars a year. (British Glass)

It is not known how long glass takes to break down but it is so long that glass made in the Middle East over 3000 years ago can still be found today.

Recycling two bottles saves enough energy to boil water for five cups of tea.

Fantastic plastic

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. 17½ billion seconds ago it was the year 1449.

We produce and use 20 times more plastic today than we did 50 years ago!

waste online