Why Do We Recycle?
| Each household produces around one tonne of rubbish every 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! |
|
The amount
of rubbish that we throw away is increasing for a number of reasons:
- New packaging materials
and technology are being developed
- Lifestyle changes.
For example, a greater reliance on convenience / fast food
- Increasing affluence,
leading to greater consumption of goods
- Increasing population
Today's rubbish,
compared to pre-1960s rubbish, contains more products that don't break down
when they are put in the ground. Packaging waste makes up about a quarter of
all of the rubbish that you put in your bin. Most of this packaging waste could
be recycled.
We need to
increase the amount of rubbish that is recycled because we cannot bury or burn
rubbish forever. This is recognised by the government who are thinking of ways
we can reduce the amount of rubbish that we produce and increase the amount
of waste that we reuse and recycle.
However, these
changes will not happen overnight. To increase recycling we need to:
- Collect more rubbish
in recycling bins and on doorsteps ready to be recycled
- Build more recycling
plants
- Educate people
about recycling
- Make sure there
are enough rubbish trucks to collect the recyclable rubbish
-
Find ways of turning recycled material into useful items. Did you know,
some fleece jackets are made from recycled plastic bottles? Visit the
recycled products page for further information
Click here to find top recycling tips for a
wide range of materials from batteries to tights!
