Facts and figures about rubbish and recycling
A third of food grown for human consumption in the UK ends up being thrown away. 8.5 million new, perfectly good toys are thrown away every year in the UK. Over 20% of household rubbish is paper and card which can be recycled. Here are some more facts and figures about rubbish and recycling in East Sussex.
Household waste recycling site
Did you know?
In 2006/07:
- the average East Sussex household threw away over a tonne of rubbish – this amount is growing nationally by around 2% every year
- the council spent £60.88 per tonne on managing your waste
- you purchased 4,835 compost bins
- the Rethink Rubbish Bus made 152 visits and met nearly 15,000 people
- we achieved a recycling rate of 29%
- 50% of you with gardens or allotments composted your garden waste and 38% your kitchen waste
- 18,161 residents registered with the Mailing Preference Service.
Targets
We have set targets for managing our waste. They are:
Our recycling levels are continuing to increase under Veolia's (formerly known as Onyx) management. There has been a 2% increase, from 27% to 29%, over the fourth year of the contract.
What is in our rubbish?
Our household waste, that is either disposed of or recycled, is made up of the following:
- Putrescibles (garden waste, kitchen waste – cooked and uncooked, faeces) 34.22%
- Paper and card 20.56%
- Other (fines, miscellaneous non combustibles – building rubble stone, miscellaneous combustible – disposable nappies, sanitary towels, bottle cork, other) 14%
- Glass 7.12%
- Plastic 7.67%
- Metal (ferrous, non ferrous) 4.87%
- Wood 4.60%
- Textiles 3.01%
- Miscellaneous (large household items, black bags, electrical, ceramics, hazardous, oil) 2.51%
- Soil and rubble 1.82%
How much do we recycle?
In East Sussex during 2006/07 we generated 523kg of waste per person. Of this:
- we recycled 151kg of waste per person
- the dry recycling rate (for glass, metal etc) was 18%
- the composting rate (for green garden waste) was 11%.
Download our detailed waste and recycling statistics.
Household Waste Recycling Sites (HWRS) performance
The overall HWRS recycling rate for 2006/07 has increased by 3%, from 45% to 48%. This has increased through implementing improvements at the sites which has increased capacity for more recyclable materials.
The highest recycling rate was achieved by Forest Row and Lewes HWRS. Forest Row recycled 61% and Lewes recycled 60% of waste overall.
Compost bin and food waste digester units
We continue to distribute reduced-priced home compost bins (and water butts) to local residents, and now also provide various food waste digester units.
- 9,590 Compost bins (since offer started in July 03 to Mar 05)
- 1,635 Water butts (since offer started in July 03 to Mar 05)
- 205 Wormeries (since offer started in Aug 04 to Mar 05)
- 36 Green Cone food waste digesting units (since offer started in Nov 04 to Mar 05)
- 56 Green Johanna food waste/green waste digesting units (since offer started in Oct 04 to Mar 05).
