Each household produces around one tonne of rubbish every year, which equates to around 29.1 million tonnes for the UK each year. That is the same weight of approximately 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 is being developed
- lifestyle changes. For example, a greater reliance on fast and convenience 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 into the ground. Packaging waste makes up about a quarter of all of the rubbish you put into your bin. Most of this rubbish could be recycled.
We need to increase the amount of rubbish that is being recycled, because we cannot carry on burying and burning rubbish forever. This is recognised by the government who are thinking of ways to reduce the amount of rubbish that we produce and increase the amount 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 making recycled materials into useful items. Did you know that some fleece jackets are made from recycled plastic bottles?
