Recycling and waste – facts and figures

• Every year UK households throw away the equivalent of 3.5 million double-decker buses (almost 30 million tons) of rubbish, a queue of which would stretch from London to Sydney and back.

• On average, each person in Britain throws away seven times their body weight in rubbish each year.

• Each ton of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatts of energy and 7,000 gallons of water

• Over eight million disposable nappies are used in Britain every day

• Plastic bags and other plastic rubbish thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year

• If you lined up all the polystyrene foam cups made in just one day they would circle the earth

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