Why recycle?
Recycling saves us money and that can be directed towards other vital services. It also helps save the planet.
We have to spend £80 for every tonne of rubbish you throw out, but it only costs us £15 for every tonne of recycling. And, with each household in Islington producing on average the equivalent of a car’s weight in rubbish every year, most of which is buried in landfill sites, that's a lot of wasted money that could be put to better use elsewhere.
There’s also a tax on burying rubbish which is set to double over the next few years. This means burying rubbish will cost us £1 million a year.
Because of this, and at a time of harsh government spending cuts, we are actively looking for ways of dealing with our rubbish and how we can produce less of it by reducing, reusing and recycling.
This is why it’s now compulsory to recycle your waste in Islington.
More reasons to recycle
Did you know that 70% of what we throw away could be recycled or composted?
We use over 150 million plastic bags each week and plastic bags buried in landfill take 500 years to decay.
Here are some additional reasons to recycle your waste:
- it’s efficient – items you recycle are valuable resources which can be made into something useful
- it reduces the demand on raw materials
- it creates employment – recycling and buying recycled goods helps create new jobs
- it reduces our negative impact on the environment by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we produce
- it reduces costs and stops our reliance on expensive landfill sites.