The 32,028 schools in the UK have a signifikan role to play in improving the environment by educating children about the importance of recycling and getting them excited and involved in schools’ recycling initiatives such as Plastic Fantastic, Pledge2WIN, Kids Against Plastic, Alupro – Masters of Infinity, and there are many, many more.

Great recycling and reuse ideas from school can be taken home and implemented to help to drive down the mountains of waste that we produce each year.

Some recycling facts and figures
Up to 60% of the rubbish that ends up in landfill could be recycled.
An estimated 13 billion plastic bottles are disposed of each year, but more than 285,000 tonnes, or 6.28 billion plastic bottles, are not recycled. This costs local councils £24.3m in disposal costs.
Recycling a single plastic bottle can conserve enough energy to light a 60W light bulb for up to 6 hours.
Recycling 1 tonne of plastic bottles saves 1.5 tonnes of carbon. 1 tonne = 25,000 plastic bottles.
65% of UK local authorities provide a recycling collection for plastic bottles.
The UK produces over 9 billion drinks cans every year.
There are over 2.5 billion cans recycled in the UK each year – that’s a saving of 125,000 tonnes of solid waste every year. Stretched end to end, these recycled cans would stretch three quarters of the way round the world.
90% of all drinks cans sold in the UK every year are made of aluminium.
Making one aluminium drinks can from raw materials uses the same amount of energy that it takes to recycle 20 aluminium drinks cans, and the energy saved by recycling just one aluminium drinks can is enough to run a television for 3 hours.
Each average UK household uses approximately 600 steel cans and 500 glass bottles and jars per year.
Glass that is thrown away and ends up in landfill will never decompose.
All steel cans can be recycled – they can be recycled over and over again, into anything from cars and bicycles to more steel cans.
12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard are used annually in the UK.
Recycled paper produces 73% less air pollution than if it was made from raw materials, and every tonne of paper recycled saves 17 trees.
Each year in the UK we throw away over 600 million batteries and over 20,000 tonnes of batteries are sent to landfill.
Electrical goods are the fastest growing waste stream in the UK, growing by 5% each year.
15 million mobile phones are upgraded in the UK each year – laid from end to end they would reach from John O’Groats to Lands End.
We throw away more than 7 million tonnes of food and drink every year from our homes, most of which could have been safely consumed. Wasting food costs the average family £420 a year and the CO2 impact would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 5 cars off the road.
1/2 a recycled banana peel could generate enough electricity to charge an iPod/iPhone/smartphone.
35 recycled teabags would power a TV for an hour.