who makes rubbish?
Everybody makes
rubbish. Each week the average family in a
developed
country gets through 4 glass bottles or jars, 13 cans, 3 plastic bottles
and 5 kilograms of paper. This means that every day, a total of about 8,000
tonnes of rubbish is thrown away by families in England and Wales. This amount
of rubbish equates to the weight of 1,600 African elephants!
The amount
of rubbish is growing every year. The total amount of waste in England increased
by 1.4% to 29.1 million tonnes in 2006/ 07.
But, the good
news is that more of this is being recycled than ever before. Household recycling
and composting rates in England increased to 31% in 2006/7 from 27% in 2005/6.
(Statistics from defra.gov.uk)
However, this
still leaves a lot of rubbish that we have to burn (incinerate)
or bury (landfill).
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Have
a look at the picture of the dustbin. This highlights the sort of rubbish
that goes into the average family's dustbin.
To
view the proportion of packaging rubbish click on the dustbin.
Total dustbin content = 16kg
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;)
