General Recycling
* Each UK household produces over 1 tonne of rubbish annually, amounting to about 31 million tonnes for the UK each year

* Every year, the average dustbin contains enough unrealised energy for 500 baths, 3500 showers or 5,000 hours of television.

* On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every 7 weeks

* Every 8 months the UK produces enough waste to fill Lake Windermere (the largest lake in England)

* In less than 2 hours the UK produces enough waste to fill the Albert Hall

* The cost of managing the municipal waste produced in England is around £1.6 billion per year

Aluminium Recycling
* If all the aluminium drinks cans sold in the UK were recycled, there would be 14 million fewer full dustbins per year

* If all of 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

* In the UK, 75% of all drinks cans are made of aluminium.

* It’s better news in industry – larger aluminium products, used in buildings and vehicles for example, have a 95% recycling rate. That’s simply because they’re more valuable.

* Just one recycled aluminium can saves enough energy to run a television set for three hours!

Steel Recycling
* In industry, steel recycling is common – 'home scrap' generated by the steel manufacturing process is re-melted and used over and over again. It never leaves the mill, refinery or foundry.

* In the UK we use around 12.5 billion steel cans every year, or 600 per household, but nearly 10 billion of these still go to landfill.

* In 2005 we recycled around 50% of steel packaging including over 2.5 billion steel cans! The government target is to increase that to 54% by 2008.

* Producing steel from recycled material saves 75% of the energy needed for steel made from virgin material source:

* Every steel can is 100% recyclable. It can be recycled over and over again into products like bicycles and of course new cans

Glass Recycling
* The largest glass furnaces produce more than 400 tonnes – that's more than one million bottles and jars - each day!

* Glass can be recycled again and again without losing its clarity or purity

* Milk bottles are reused an average of 13 times before recycling

* The UK has more than 50,000 bottle banks source:

* One bottle bank can hold up to 3,000 bottles before it needs to be emptied.

* We use around 2.4 million tonnes of container glass in the UK every year.

* In 2005 we recycled approximately 1.2 million tonnes of used glass (known as ‘cullet’).

* Making glass bottles and jars from recycled ones saves energy. The energy saving from recycling one bottle will:
- Power a 100 watt light bulb for almost an hour
- Power a computer for 20 minutes
- Power a colour TV for 15 minutes
- Power a washing machine for 10 minutes source:

* 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.