How rubbish will your Bank Holiday Weekend be?
This Bank Holiday Weekend promises to be an action packed one with over 10 million of us planning on partying, going to festivals and hosting friends and family for barbeques and dinners.
But while you’re having fun, spare a thought for the bin men of Britain come Tuesday, with a new study by Sodastream showing all that fun and festivity will produce over a staggering 40 million bags of rubbish.
Worryingly, only a fifth of this will be recycled, and staggeringly half of the Britons surveyed admit they do not feel guilty about it.
Furthermore 10% of that non-recycled rubbish will consist of plastic bottles with over a third of the nation admitting it hadn’t crossed their mind to try and reduce the number of plastic bottles they use, despite the impact it can have on the environment.
Brits top five bad habits this Bank Holiday are likely to include:
1. Throwing away food
2. Leaving lights on/wasting energy
3. Not recycling food packaging
4. Throwing away plastic bottles
5. Buying/using too many plastic bottles
The most wasteful cities in the UK when it comes to bottle waste will be Newcastle and Sheffield, with Brighton and Bristol the least wasteful.
The research also revealed that Brits grossly underestimate the number of plastic bottles they use per week, with 60% believing they only use 1-4 plastic bottles, when the actual number is 15 each week.
Top Five Tips for Reducing Waste this Bank Holiday Weekend
1. Get organised before the weekend by having separate bags and containers ready to fill with different types of rubbish.
2. Re-use plastic bottles during the weekend instead of just chucking them out.
3. Wrap up leftover food as soon as you’re finished to make into meals and snacks the next day
4. Instead of buying lots of bottled drinks - make your own.
5.Make recycling fun for your kids by making it a competition to see who can collect the most recyclable items over the weekend.
A spokesperson for SodaStream comments: "Looking at the Bank Holiday alone, it is staggering how much waste we will produce as a nation.
"With recycling so low on people’s agenda it makes the need for pre-cycling ever more pertinent so it is important to encourage people to reduce their everyday waste in the first place."
Tagged in Recycling