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British households fail to recycle a 'staggering' 16m plastic bottles a day
October 15, 2016
British households fail to recycle a 'staggering' 16m plastic bottles a day
Rebecca Smithers
Saturday 15 October 2016 07.01 BST
British households are failing to recycle as many as 16m plastic bottles every day – a “staggering” number and nearly half the total of more than 35m which are used and discarded daily – according to new research.
Based on the data published on Saturday, the Recycle Now campaign group suggests that the number of bottles evading recycling in the UK could reach 29bn by the end of 2020, putting huge pressure on landfill and with dire consequences for marine life.
Every year the average UK household uses 480 plastic bottles, but only recycles 270 of them, meaning nearly half (44%) are not put into recycling facilities, according to Recycle Now, a campaign group funded by the government’s waste advisory group Wrap.
On a national basis, that means an average of 35.8m plastic bottles are used every day, but only 19.8m are recycled each day. So an average of 16m plastic bottles a day are not being recycled and are ending up in landfill – and eventually the world’s oceans, where they will take years to break down.
Read more at The Guardian.
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