Waste

Trash culture

We live in a throw-away society, and we sure do throw a lot away! In the UK, only 17% of our rubbish is recycled, and the average person throws out their body weight in rubbish every 3 months. Our food is wrapped up in layers of unnecessary plastic and cardboard packaging that gets chucked straight in the bin, along with the carrier bags we brought it all home in. We dump our old TVs and stereos because it's cheaper to buy new ones, and buy new clothes rather than 'make do and mend'. But convenience comes at a price and our trash culture is making a mess of our planet.

Facts 'n' figures

Paper

• Every year, we need a forest the size of Wales to provide all the paper we use in Britain.
• Each tonne of paper recycled saves 17 trees, 7000 gallons of water and 4200 KWH of electricity.
• One edition of a daily newspaper uses wood from 5000 trees. And every Sunday, 90% of all newspapers are thrown away, equal to sending 500,000 trees to landfill.

Glass

• Glass is 100% recyclable and can be endlessly recycled with no loss in quality.
• Every tonne of glass recycled saves over 1 tonne of raw materials like sand and limestone. This means less quarrying, less damage to our countryside, less pollution, valuable energy saving and less global warming.

Plastic

• The UK uses 500 million plastic bags each week.
• 25% of all household waste is packaging. Most families throw away about 40 Kg of plastic a year.
• Plastic bags sent to landfill take around 500 years to decay.

Buried or burnt

When you throw things away, they don't evaporate into thin air. All those black bin bags end up in landfill sites or, increasingly, are incinerated. Landfill sites are a contributing factor to global warming because of the methane released by decomposing matter. Methane is the second most serious greenhouse gas after CO2. Toxic water, known as leachate, also seeps out the bottom of landfills and pollutes surrounding groundwater. As landfill sites fill up, the government is turning to incineration - which is even more polluting than landfill, due to the toxic fumes released when plastic and other materials are burnt. The smoke, gases and ash can also contain cancer-causing dioxins. The more rubbish you generate, the more that has to be buried or burnt.

Rubbish kills!

Bottles, bags, jars and other rubbish can be lethal to small critters who get cut, tangled up in, strangled by and trapped inside the myriad vessels and packaging that we throw away. There are a few small steps you can take to minimise the risk that your rubbish poses to wildlife:

Plastic bags deserve a special mention in the list of dangerous debris. They are particularly evil because they are so wasteful, so harmful and so environmentally-unfriendly. Animals can get them wound round their necks, wings and legs and may be unable to free themselves. At sea, plastic bags pose even greater danger. Blowing about on top of the water they are frequently mistaken for jellyfish and consumed by a wide range of marine species. Once eaten, the bag will not be digested, and could block the digestive tract leading to infection, starvation and eventual death. An autopsy carried out on one dead whale washed up on a French beach found her stomach contained 800 kg of plastic bags and packaging. Marine animals also get tangled up in plastic bags and drown, suffocate or have the circulation cut off to their appendages. It is estimated that globally over one million birds and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles die every year from entanglement in, or ingestion of plastics.

Tying a knot in plastic bags before you throw them out can stop them blowing about but many supermarkets now have points where you can recycle your bags. Charity shops and independent health food shops often take them rather than producing their own new ones, and the best option of all is for you to save and reuse them.

Plastic bottles - many councils now recycle plastic bottles but whether you are able to recycle them or not, cut them in half lengthwise to stop small creatures climbing inside and getting stuck.

Cans - can cut and trap animals that come in contact with them. Remove the lid, drop it to the bottom of the can and stamp on it to squash the top together, or even better, take off the bottom with a tin-opener as well and flatten completely.

Yogurt pots - can get stuck over heads and noses. Crush them or even better, cut them in half with scissors.

Plastic drinks can holders - can become entwined around the limbs or necks of wild animals. Foxes have even been found with their snouts bound together by one of the plastic rings. Cut the loops binding the rings together before you throw them out.

Glass bottles - can be deathtraps to small animals such as shrews. Attracted to the sugary smell, little creatures crawl inside, but are unable to get back out because the steep, slippery sides of the neck offer no grip. Trapped animals die slowly from starvation. Broken glass injures birds and animals (and people) and is a fire hazard in the sun.

Oil - millions of gallons of oil pollute our seas and rivers each year. Oil tankers are to blame for only 5% of marine oil pollution. The guilty culprits are us folk and the oil that we pour down our drains, that runs off our roads and is the overspill of industry. The runoff from the streets of just one large city can create as much oil pollution in a year as a supertanker disaster. Contact your local garage or council for oil recycling facilities.

Rubber bands - can trap and entangle animals. Snip them up before you put them in the bin.

Balloon releases - call us party-poopers but we're going to encourage you not to buy balloons. Sea birds and turtles mistake balloons bobbing along rivers and seas for jellyfish and other food. Ingested balloons will not be digested but may clog up their digestive system and kill them. If you do insist on buying balloons, cut them up into small pieces before you throw them away.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Reduce - Simply try to buy less! Do you really need that twentieth pair of shoes?

Reuse - Repair things when they break instead of throwing them away and buying new ones. Also, keep an eye out for skips. They are treasure troves of reusable stuff - past finds including working computers, office chairs, tea urns and even a weather station!

Recycle - The last resort - if something cannot be re-used - is to recycle it. This still uses resources, but a lot less than buying new things - as the facts and figures above show.

Compost it - The ultimate in zero-waste is to compost your kitchen scraps. You can even bulk it up with old newspapers and bits of cardboard. The pile will reduce itself as if by magic, and after a few months you will have A-grade organic matter to use in your garden.