Plastic Bottle
Is all this warm weather making you reach for a bottle of something cool and refreshing? Whether at London's sporting events, your local Jubilee celebration or watching the spectacles from home, spare a thought for the humble plastic bottle…
From soft drinks and olive oil to shampoo and bleach, we use a staggering 15 million plastic bottles EVERY DAY in the UK alone. Just under half of all of these (but as many as three quarters of plastic milk bottles) end up making it through the recycling process. This is over 20 times more than we were managing in 2000, but advances in technology now mean that ALL sizes and shapes of bottle can be turned fences, bags, flooring, fleeces…or even more bottles!
As you're watching your favourite soap, drama or sporting fixture at home this summer, consider this - if each of us in the UK recycled just one extra plastic bottle each year, we could power 71,000 plasma screen TVs from the energy saved. So, get washing, squashing and recycling your plastic bottles today.
Plastic Factoids
1. The first plastic bottle was sold in 1947 - it celebrated its Diamond Jubilee five years before Queen Elizabeth!
2. Any plastic bottle can be recycled now - just wash & squash them.
3. The flag planted on the moon by Neil Armstrong in 1969 was made of Nylon.
4. Plastic is the most used material in the world, and has been for 35 years.
5. Recycling 1 tonne of plastic bottles saves 1.5 tonnes of carbon emissions.
6. It only takes 25 two-litre plastic bottles to make an adult-sized fleece.
7. Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for six hours.
8 We now recycle 20 times more plastic than we did back in 2000.
9 Over 90% of our local authorities now offer collection facilities for plastic bottles, either from your kerbside or recycling centres.
10. If all of us in the UK recycled just one extra plastic bottle every year, we could power over 71,000 plasma screen TVs infinitely using the energy saved.
Tagged in environment Recycling