The importance of recycling!!!

Plastic

• 275,000 tones of plastic are used each year in the UK, that’s about 15 million bottles per day.
• Most families throw away about 40kg of plastic per year, which could otherwise be recycled.
• The use of plastic in Western Europe is growing about 4% each year.
• Plastic can take up to 500 years to decompose.

Paper

• Recycled paper produces 73% less air pollution than if it was made from raw materials.
• 12.5 million tones of paper and cardboard are used annually in the UK.
• The average person in the UK gets through 38kg of newspapers per year.
• It takes 24 trees to make 1 ton of newspaper.

Glass

• Each UK family uses an average of 500 glass bottles and jars annually.
• The largest glass furnace produces over 1 million glass bottles and jars per day.
• Glass is 100% recyclable and can be used again and again.
• Glass that is thrown away and ends up in landfills will never decompose.

Aluminium

• 24 million tones of aluminium is produced annually, 51,000 tones of which ends up as packaging in the UK.
• If all cans in the UK were recycled, we would need 14 million fewer dustbins.
• £36,000,000 worth of aluminium is thrown away each year.
• Aluminium cans can be recycled and ready to use in just 6 weeks.

        http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/importance.html