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Recycling Facts and Figures

Food for thought

posted on 28-09-2015 @ 10:08

WOW! Did you know just how much energy and wealth there is trapped in our waste? To give you an idea of just how valuable recycling can be here are a few facts and figures to make you think:

  1. The unreleased energy in the average dustbin each year is enough to power a television for 5,000 hours, or 208 days! Great! Where do I plug it in?
  2. Glass can be recycled again and again and again but glass that ends up in landfill will never decompose because it’s made of silica i.e. sand and sand doesn’t decompose – only organic matter decomposes.
  3. Recycling one tonne of paper uses 70% less energy and 40 less water than making brand new paper from brand new trees!
  4. It takes a thousand years for a plastic bag to completely break down.
  5. Over 2 million tonnes of food are thrown away each year.

Now if that’s not food for thought, we don’t know what is.