News — Fun Recycling Facts

 

Fun Facts about cans 

  • Recycling one aluminium can saves enough energy to power your TV for three hours.
  • Making one can from raw materials uses the same amount of energy that it takes to recycle 20 cans.
  • The average UK household uses around 600 steel cans every year.
  • The aluminium drinks can is the world’s most recycled packaging container – worldwide over 50% of aluminium cans are recycled.

Fun Facts about glass 

  • Around 14 million glass bottles and jars are sent to landfill in the UK every day.
  • Recycling one glass bottle or jar saves enough energy to power your computer for 20 minutes.
  • Glass can be recycled again and again – containers made from recycled glass are of the same high quality as those made from new raw materials.
  • Green glass bottles are made with up to 90% recycled glass.

Fun Facts about paper 

  • The average person living in the UK uses around 200kg of paper every year.
  • Paper and card make up 40% of the waste collected for recycling from UK households.
  • For every tonne of recycled newspaper, we save 17 trees.
  • Recycling paper saves almost 80% of the energy needed to make paper from new raw materials.
  • It can take just seven days for old magazines and newspapers to be recycled into new ones.

Fun Facts about plastic 

  • In the UK we throw away around 455,000 tonnes of plastic bottles every year – equivalent to around 9.1 billion bottles.
  • It takes just 25 two-litre plastic bottles to make a recycled fleece jacket.
  • Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60W lightbulb for six hours.
  • Around 11% of our household waste is plastic and 40% of this is plastic bottles.

Fun Facts about waste in the UK 

  • Each UK household produces over 1 tonne of waste per year. This is the weight of a small car.
  • In less than 2 hours the UK produces enough waste to fill the Albert Hall.
  • 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 waste every seven weeks.
  • Up to 60% of the waste that ends up in the bin could be recycled.

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