Why Recycle?

The rubbish problem

Each household in Islington produces the equivalent of an average car’s weight of rubbish every year. Most of this is buried in landfill sites, which are rapidly filling up, and space for new sites is limited. When rubbish is buried in landfill it rots, creating methane gas which contributes to climate change.

The cost of burying our rubbish is rising fast, with the tax on burying our rubbish set to double over the next three years. This will cost Islington an extra £1 million a year.

We need to find new ways of dealing with our rubbish and think about how we can produce less. The simplest ways to do this are by reducing, reusing and recycling. 70% of what we throw away could be recycled.

Why we should recycle

Efficiency: The items you recycle are valuable resources which can be made into something useful.

Reduces the demand for raw materials: Recycling reduces the amount of raw materials and energy needed to create new products.

New local employment: Recycling and buying recycled goods helps creates new jobs and industries.

Environmental issues: Recycling reduces our impact on the environment by reducing the production of greenhouse gases and the leaking of dangerous chemicals from landfill sites.

Reduced landfill: There are already over 1,500 landfill sites currently in operation, with each one burying around 80,000 tonnes of rubbish each year. Recycling reduces our dependence on landfill to deal with our waste.

Costs: As landfill becomes rarer and more expensive, recycling becomes a far cheaper way of dealing with Islington’s waste by reducing the amount of rubbish sent to landfill.

The Three R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

• Reduce the waste that you produce: We can all make choices that prevent waste being created in the first place.

• Reuse products or buy a product that can be reused: By reusing items, their lifespan is lengthened and they are replaced less often, reducing the amount of waste we produce.

• Recycling and composting: Recycling is best choice for waste disposal as making new products from recycling uses less materials, less energy and creates less pollution than using raw materials.

To find out more and get some tips, visit the Reduce and Reuse section of this site using the link on the right.

Facts and Figures

• 70% of your bin can be recycled or composted

• The average annual increase in municipal waste from 2000/01 to 2004/05 was 1.5%

• Plastic bags buried in landfill take about 500 years to decay. We use over 150 million plastic bags each week