What's in a number?

While researching an article on recycling for First News (the national children’s newspaper, I’m the deputy editor) WRAP and the Environment Agency kindly sent me a bunch of stats. Some of them are quite, quite extraordinary. Let me give you an example.

Did you know, that within eight months of a year, the UK produces enough waste to fill Lake Windermere? For those of you who skipped geography that day, Lake Windermere is the biggest lake in England, measuring 10.5 miles long and one mile wide! Crikey, that’s a lot of rubbish.

I’ll continue.

It takes 800 litres of water to make one T-shirt. All that water for one little T-shirt. WRAP tell me that if every household in the UK recycled two T-shirts a year, we’d save as much water as you can fit in 16,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. That’s a LOT of water.

There’s more.

By recycling one can, enough energy is saved to power a TV for three hours. Recycle a can a day and you save enough energy to power a TV for 90 hours. That’s nearly four days without pause! And for anyone out there who claims that recycling a can takes more energy than producing a new one, it really doesn’t. Recycling aluminium uses only around 5% of the energy and emissions needed to make it from scratch.

It gets better.

If you ever doubted that there was a point to you recycling, try this on for size: Recycling one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a light bulb (60 watt) for six hours. The average UK household uses 373 plastic bottles a year. Recycle all of those and that’s 2,238 hours, or three months, of light saved. Make those light bulbs energy-saving ones and it’s even better! (For double plus goodness ditch the plastic bottle and invest in a reusable one instead.)

And finally. Plastic bags.

Plastic carrier bags are made from oil and oil is a fossil fuel. Non-renewable, when it’s gone, it’s gone. In 2008, UK shoppers picked up 9.9 billion new carrier bags, that’s 400 per household. To produce this number of bags takes 180,000 tonnes of oil and produces greenhouse gases the equivalent of 100,000 extra cars on the road. For those of you out there who rarely or never pick up plastic bags, feel heartened at the amount of oil and emissions you’re saving. For those of you who do pick up a free plastic bag at the till, might you think again?  

Comments

[Mrs Green]

Shocking stats, which makes for great reading. I think your article is going to be really inspirational. Thanks for sharing :)

[Clair]

Definitely worth thinking about! I recycle already (it's not exactly difficult!) but I'm definitely going to be cutting down on drinks in plastic bottles in 2010. Thanks for the info x

[Kristen@TheFrugalGirl]

And just think how much energy is saved if you don't even buy a can of soda in the first place, and instead drink tap water in a stainless steel water bottle! I love it when I can avoid having something to recycle.

[SarahLP]

Phew.. it's just so frightening, the damage we're all doing.. those figures are very sobering. But it's really great how you point out how easy it is for each one of us to make a difference. Your article is going to be fascinating.

PS thank you so much for your lovely comment on my blog! :oD

[the green gal]

Thanks for the comments, I really appreciate you taking the time to add your thoughts.
The reason I wrote the article for First News is because some of our readers have told us that they feel a bit overwhelmed and don't think that they can really make a difference to the world. Obviously this is not how we want our youth to feel! So, I hope that the article shows them how the actions of one person does make a difference and by encouraging their family and friends to join in too, a bigger difference can be made.
Plus, I think kids view recycling differently to adults, because they've grown up with it. They list the things they already do, like recycling paper, cans, glass, card, turning off the TV and lights and walk to school, and say that they don't really do much! Compared to several adults I know that's a lot!
As you say, Clair, recycling isn't hard, it doesn't take long for it to become part of the routine, as much as putting out the rubbish.
And, Kristen, you're quite right - recycling rather than binning is good but cutting down the packaging you buy in the first place is even better.
Sarah, please don't be frightened, see what good comes of you doing something as simple as recycling and be heartened!
And Mrs G, you're the example for us all to follow, if you're not familiar with their marvellous achievement, let me tell you that Mrs G and family filled only one bin liner in the whole of 2009. Check out http://www.myzerowaste.com and be inspired.