Facts and figures
Oil is present in all plastics and is a non-renewable resource.
275,000 tonnes of plastic are used each year in the UK, that's about 15 million bottles per day. See BBC press release.
(Recycling Guide)
Plastic can take up to 500 years to decompose
(Recycling Guide)
On average, every household uses 500 plastic bottles each year, of which just 130 are recycled
(Recoup)
What's wrong with plastic?
The use of plastic packaging has been identified as having a negative effect on the environment because plastic is made from oil, which as a fossil fuel, is running out. Most plastic is dumped into landfill sites where it remains buried indefinitely.
Plastic milk bottles are one of the main contributors to this because of the volume of bottles (around 9bn in the UK alone annually) and also because of the size of the bottles. People leave the tops on, so the bottles cannot be crushed at Landfill.
What you can do
Reducing the amount of rubbish we produce is the first important step to reduce our impact on the environment but there are other ways to ensure that we are doing our best for the planet.
- Buy goods with a high recycled content
- Sort your rubbish. You can find out what your council recycles by visiting the recycle now website
- Compost at home
- Put in to practice the 3R's; reduce, reuse, recycle
11% of household waste is plastic, 40% of which is plastic bottles
(Recoup)
During 2006 plastic bottles worth around £50 million were disposed of at a cost of £100 million
(Recoup)
The amount of plastic waste generated annually in the UK is estimated to be nearly 3 million tonnes
(Waste Online)
Only 2.5% of plastic bottles are presently recycled in the whole of Europe
(Recycling Solutions)