Waste not,
want not - or so the saying goes. The issue is, we seem to be a nation of
‘wanters’, and considering the staggering statistics on our tendency to throw
away items after a few or one use, we’re a nation of wasters as well. Here we
have accumulated some shocking statistics about our waste habits in the UK.
Check out
these surprising facts on our
(literally) rubbish habits.
How much waste is produced in the UK?
Its estimated
that the amount of waste we produce
in the UK equates to:
● in one hour would fill the Albert
Hall
● in one day would fill Trafalgar
Square to the top of Nelson’s Column
● in nine months would fill Lake
Windermere
We throw out
around five million tonnes of electrical waste globally every single year.
That’s nearly four million double-decker buses worth of old computer equipment,
televisions, stereos and kitchen appliances, stretching to the moon more than
three times.
Between 20%
and 40% of fruit and vegetables are turned away by supermarkets before they
even reach the shelves. Why? Because they don’t adhere to their aesthetic standards.
Essentially they are misshapen, lumpy or just unusual-looking - but this
doesn’t mean they are any less tasty.
We used to
get through 500 million plastic bags every week in the UK, this equates to
billions of bags and thousands of tonnes of plastic. Sadly, each bag will take
between 500 and 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill site. However, since the
introduction of charged bag usage, this has dropped by a staggering 85%. A real
victory for Mother Earth!
In addition
to this we throw away 7.2 million tonnes of food every year, and more than half
of it’s edible, or just out of date. This happens despite 1 in 7 people across
the world don't have enough to eat.
In short,
the UK needs to dramatically decrease the amount of rubbish it sends to landfill
sites, regardless of when space runs out, landfill sites are a finite resource.
It also needs to increase efforts to clear existing sites up, as the pollution
caused by them is unacceptable.
Here at W M
Thompson & Sons, we are mindful about the waste we dispose of, that is why
we have our own on-site recycling plant and supply of recycled aggregates,
we’re committed to neutralising any negative environmental impact caused by
quarrying. Don’t hesitate to get in contact
with our team to find out more about
what we do.
