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
Household waste recycling site

Did you know?

In 2009/10:

  • the average East Sussex household threw away over a tonne of rubbish – this amount is growing nationally by around 0.5% every year
  • you purchased 2,133 compost bins and food waste digester units
  • the Rethink Rubbish Bus made 137 visits and met over 14,500 people
  • we achieved a recycling rate of 36%
  • 4,577 residents registered with the Mailing Preference Service to stop addressed junk mail.

Targets

We have set targets for managing our waste. They can be found in Item 9 on this page:

Our recycling levels are continuing to increase under Veolia's management. There has been a 1% increase, from 35% to 36%, over the seventh 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 2009/10 we generated 476kg of waste per person. Of this:

  • we recycled 173kg of waste per person
  • the dry recycling rate (for glass, metal etc) was 21%
  • the composting rate (for green garden waste) was 15%.

Download our detailed waste and recycling statistics.

Household Waste Recycling Sites (HWRS) performance

The overall HWRS recycling rate for 2009/10 has remained at 49%. This has increased through implementing improvements at the sites which has increased capacity for more recyclable materials.

The highest recycling rate was achieved by Wadhurst and Lewes HWRS. Wadhurst recycled 65% and Lewes recycled 63% of waste overall.