When I was writing The Book of Rubbish Ideas, my head was positively swimming with figures, stats and percentages. 

The great guys at WRAP helped me UNwrap all the hype and eco-humbug so I could get to the heart of the news.  

Here’s a little more, so hot off the press it’s still steaming, for you to chew on…

New figures released today by their Recycle Now team show that the value of materials that we’ve sent for recycling has reached £1.1 billion since 2003 as we continue to recycle more – an average annual growth of 30 per cent.

The amount of rubbish being sent for recycling has almost doubled over the last five years, which has contributed to this marked increase in value.

Latest statistics for England show that we sent around 33.8 million tonnes of our waste for recycling since 2003. Had we not recycled these materials, the total volume of waste would have covered an area the size of the City of London one metre deep 40 times over, and the cost of sending them to the tip would have been approximately £1.8 billion.

Laura Underwood from Recycle Now said: “Recycling is a success story and it’s having a major impact. We’ve saved 30 million tonnes of CO2 which is the same as taking a third of our cars off UK roads for a year.

Research proves recycling is the best case scenario for both the environment, and our pockets, so there’s every reason to keep a good thing going.”

In the past year alone, our household recycling amounted to 8.7 million tonnes. This included quantities of aluminium, steel, glass and paper equivalent to:

* 3.3 billion aluminium cans, enough to stretch around the world ten times;

* 8 billion steel food tins, seven times the amount of steel used to build Wembley Stadium;

* 2.1 billion 75cl glass wine bottles;

* 6.6 billion newspapers, nine out of every ten sold in the UK in 2008

While current global demand for recycled materials has been affected by the economic downturn, latest survey results indicate that UK recycling markets are stabilising, with prices rising for higher quality materials.

Laura Underwood added: “Despite a dip in prices for recycled materials, more than 95 per cent of material put out for recycling is being recycled, helping make the best use of ever scarcer resources.

The feedback we’re getting from recycling businesses on the ground is that markets are open and recycling is still worth a considerable amount to the UK economy at today’s prices.”

Oliver Heath, eco-designer and supporter of the Recycle Now campaign, said: “Two-thirds of us are now recycling as a way of life and it’s good to know that doing our bit has made a real difference. But there’s always more we can do, so I’d encourage families to think about extra measures we can all take to recycle, reduce or reuse in our daily lives”.

For practical tips on recycling and a postcode facility to find out detailed information on recycling in your area, visit www.recyclenow.com.

Recycling Facts:

* Across the UK, recycling rates increased from 17% to 34% over the last five years

* Between 2003 – 2008, the 33.8 million tonnes of household waste sent for recycling would fill the Royal Albert Hall over 1,000 times

* The 30 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent saved is equivalent to taking 9.4 million cars – or one-third of all cars on the road in Britain – off the road for one year. Last year our household recycling alone saved 6.5 million tonnes of CO2 which is the same as avoiding over 1 million return flights from London to Sydney

* In total, for the period 2003/04 – 2007/08, the quantity of cans, glass, paper, plastic and textiles recycled was equivalent to the following:

o 10.1 billion aluminium cans – that’s the comparable to saving 1.6 million tonnes of raw materials and, if laid end-to-end, the cans would stretch to the moon three times

o 24.2 billion steel food cans – that’s 21 times the amount of steel used in the construction of Wembley stadium

o 9.5 billion 75cl glass wine bottles – that’s equal to saving 5.4 million tonnes of raw materials including silica sand, limestone and dolomite, soda ash and other minerals

o 26.1 billion newspapers – that’s equivalent to supplying all men and women in the UK over the age of 15 with one newspaper per day for over two years

o 13.5 billion 500ml plastic bottles – like the world’s population recycling two plastic bottles each over the five year period

o 2.8 billion square metres of cotton fabric – which if laid out flat would amount to enough material to cover an area the size of London two time

* The recycling industry has an annual turnover of approximately £17 billion and contributes around £5.5 billion to the UK economy, while directly and indirectly supporting around 100,000 jobs.

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