Wacky Waste Facts

The First toll motorway may be the most romantic route in the world because 2.5million pulped Mills & Boons novels were used to help build it. Engineers found the pulp helped bind other the other materials used to surface the £90 million 27-mile stretch of the M6 in the Midlands. Not only do they help to make the road quieter it is environmentally friendly. (source: Sainsbury’s Magazine)
One ton of foam polystyrene can be made into 3.6 tons of paint. (source: www.worldeps.com)
Each year food shops give away enough carrier bags to cover the whole of London with a layer of them.
We use over six billion glass bottles and jars each year. It would take you over three and a half thousand years to sing "Six Billion Green Bottles"! (source: Waste Watch)
Each year in Britain, we throw away 28 million tonnes of rubbish from home. This weighs the same as three and a half million double Decker buses. A queue of buses that long would go around the world one and a half times. (source: Waste Watch)
Each child uses a total of 5850 nappies in their lifetime - which would weigh the same as an average family car! (source: Waste Watch)
In Wales a staggering 240million nappies are thrown away every year – that’s almost 500 every minute! (source: Waste Watch)
Every year the average British family throws away 6 trees worth of paper (source: Waste Watch)
Recycling just one plastic bottle can save the same amount of energy needed to power a 60watt lightbulb for 6 hours. (source: Environment Agency)
About 20,000 tonnes of aluminium foil packaging (worth £8 million) is wasted each year. Only 3,000 tonnes is recycled (worth £1.2 million) (Source: alupro)
If all the aluminium cans sold in the UK were recycled, there would be 12 million fewer full dustbins each year. (Source: Alucan website)
Every year in Wales we throw away 4 million tonnes of rubbish, that’s enough rubbish to fill the Millennium Stadium every twenty days!!!