Recycle for Essex

• Each UK household produces over 1 tonne of rubbish annually, amounting to about 31 million tonnes for the UK each year, equivalent to 31 million rhinos [source: Waste Watch]
• Every year, the average dustbin contains enough unrealised energy for 500 baths, 3500 showers or 5000 hours of television [source: www.assure.org]
• On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every 7 weeks [source: Waste Watch]
• Every 8 months the UK produces enough waste to fill Lake Windermere (the largest lake in England) [source: Waste Watch]
• In less than 2 hours the UK produces enough waste to fill the Albert Hall [source: Waste Watch]
• Rubbish collection and keeping our streets clean costs council tax payers about £1.6 billion per year [source: UK Gov]
• Nearly 3 billion nappies are thrown away in the UK every year. 90% of these end up in landfill, where they could take hundreds of years to decompose [source: UK Gov] Find out about reusable cloth nappies
• Essex currently has a recycling rate of 38%. Residents are recycling more than ever but we still need your help to recycle more and to meet our recycling targets. View our performance tables

Recycling aluminium cans rather than using virgin aluminium saves 95% in energy. Cans are melted down into large ingots which may then be used to make new drink cans.

Squash the can if possible to save space before putting it into the recycling container.

Aluminium facts and stats

• If all the aluminium drinks cans sold in the UK were recycled, there would be 14 million fewer full dustbins per year [source: www.alupro.org.uk]
• If all the aluminium cans recycled in the UK in 1998 were laid end to end, they would stretch from Land's End to John O'Groats more than 160 times [source: www.alupro.org.uk]
• Amazingly, recycling it requires only 5% of the energy it takes to make new aluminium - and produces only 5% of the CO2 emissions
• Just one recycled aluminium can saves enough energy to run a television set for three hours!

Cans made from steel are also very useful, as recycled steel can be made into new cans, as well as bicycles, paper clips, staples, anything for which steel is normally used.

Remove labels from your cans and wash them well, taking care not to cut yourself on the lids. Pop the lid back into the tin, then squash the tin if possible to save space before putting it into the recycling container.

Steel facts and stats

• At home, we get through around 500,000 tonnes of steel packaging for our food - that's about 12 billion cans - or 600 per home - but 9 billion of these still go to landfill
• The good news is that we're getting better at recycling them - in 2003 we recycled 44% of steel packaging, including 3 billion steel cans! The government target is to increase that to 54% by 2008. So get recycling!
• Producing steel from recycled material saves 75% of the energy needed for steel made from virgin material [source: www.scrib.org]
• Every steel can is 100% recyclable. It can be recycled over and over again into products like bicycles and of course new cans [source: www.recycle-more.co.uk]
• You can watch 6 episodes of Eastenders from the energy that is saved from recycling just 1 aluminium can

Bottles and jars collected at the bottle bank are taken in their separate colours to a recycling factory; where they are crushed and melted down to make new bottles and jars. These are filled, sold in shops, used by consumers, and even recycled again. Some companies make drinking glasses from recycled glass, but it can also have a new life as gravel for gardens, pavement slabs, or as an abrasive for sandblasting.

Wash used glass and make sure you separate them into the right containers at the bottle bank.

Glass facts and stats

• The largest glass furnaces produce more than 400 tonnes - that's more than one million bottles and jars - each day! [source: www.ollierecycles.com]
• Glass can be recycled again and again without losing its clarity or purity [source: www.britglass.co.uk]
• Milk bottles are reused an average of 13 times before recycling [source: Surrey County Council]
• The UK has more than 50,000 bottle banks [source: www.britglass.co.uk]
• One bottle bank can hold up to 3,000 bottles before it needs to be emptied [source: www.britglass.co.uk]
• Probably the most important thing about recycling glass is the energy saving - when using recycled glass to make new containers, 315kg of CO2 is saved for every tonne of recycled glass used
• The energy saving from recycling one bottle will:
  • Power a 100 watt light bulb for almost an hour
  • Power a computer for 25 minutes
  • Power a colour TV for 20 minutes
  • Power a washing machine for 10 minutes [source: www.britglass.co.uk]

There are literally hundreds of different products that can be made from the paper and card that we send for recycling. Naturally, there's recycled paper itself, but quite apart from stationery products such as notebooks, binders, box files and mailing tubes, paper can end up as insulation for your home, the card food tray from which you eat your chips, or even dust-free bedding for race-horses!

Keep paper and card separate, and follow the guidelines for your Recycling Centre or kerbside collection programme.

Paper facts and stats

• On average, each person in the UK uses over 200 kg of paper per year. 61% of this is recycled; however 79% is realistically achievable
• We use 12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard every year in the UK [source: Confederation of Paper Industry]
• Over Christmas as much as 83 km2 of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey [source: Waste Watch]
• Around 20% of all the household rubbish we throw away is paper and card, and approximately half of this is made up of newspapers and magazines, most of which can be recycled
• The average person gets through around 38kg of newspapers each year
• Recycled paper made up 75.5% of the raw materials for UK newspapers in 2004
• By recycling 1 tonne of cereal boxes 17 trees are saved from being cut down

Did you know that there are over 20,000 tonnes of textiles which could be reused and recycled from Essex homes each year? This is the same weight as the Royal Navy battleship and aircraft carrier HMS Invincible. Textiles amount to 3% of the rubbish that we produce in Essex.

Check with your local council if textiles are collected through your kerbside collection, if not they can be taken to the Recycling Centre.

Textiles facts and stats

• If every Briton purchased one item made from recycled wool a year it would save 371 million gallons of water, 480 tonnes of chemical dyes and 4571 million days of an average family's electricity needs [source: UK Gov]
• Present clothes banks are only operating at about 25% capacity [source: www.e4s.org.uk]
• Total arisings of textile waste are estimated to be between 550,000 and 900,000 tonnes per year, with most of this coming from household sources [source: UK Gov]

The uses of recycled plastic can be surprising. You can even wear it. A cosy fleece can be made from recycling around 25 plastic bottles. Recycled plastic can be used for sleeping bag and anorak linings, wall and floor coverings, garden furniture, guttering and drainage products, carrier bags, and yes - new plastic bottles.

Wash plastic bottles and remove the lids to make crushing them easier. The lids are often made from different plastic which cannot yet be recycled so please leave them off!

Plastic facts and stats

• The UK produces 3 million tonnes of plastic waste each year. Approximately 85% is landfilled, 8% incinerated and 7% recycled
• Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for six hours
• It takes just 25 two litre pop bottles to make one adult size fleece jacket
• 150 million plastic carrier bags are used in the UK each week - they can take up to 500 years to decay in landfill

Garden waste facts and stats

• Every tonne of biodegradable waste produces 300-500 cubic metres of landfill gas [source: Waste Treatment and Disposal - P T Williams 1998, pp. 240]
• Landfill sites released 20% of the UK's methane emissions in 2002 [source: UK Gov]
• In Essex, in 2005/06 over 33,000 tonnes of garden waste was collected at the Recycling Centres for Household Waste
• The garden waste collected is taken to central composting facilities where it is turned into high qaulity composter / soil improver
• Garden waste can be composted at home either in a heap or by using a compost bin