factsheet

Planning an article on recycling? Use the facts below to really bring the message home. Please credit recycle-more whenever possible!

• Each year in the UK households throw away over 29.1 million tonnes of waste, that's the same weight as 4.85 million male African Elephants!
• In the UK we throw away 13 billion steel cans every year, stacked on top of each other, you could make 3 piles of cans that would reach to the moon! (source: www.scrib.org.uk)
• The energy saved by recycling 1 aluminium drink can is enough to run a television for three hours
• The energy saved from recycling 1 glass bottle is enough a power a lightbulb for four hours
• Disposable nappies take 500 years to decompose
• Producing steel from recycled material saves 75% of the energy needed if steel were 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!
• 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]
• Every tonne of paper recycled saves 17 trees

To access recycle-more's fascinating fact posters, click on the headings below!

fact poster on cans    fact poster on paper     fact poster on glass
fact poster on steel    fact poster on waste