Have you ever wondered how much rubbish your household produces each year? No – probably not! But we are a bit weird so we weighed everything for a year to find out.


We found big variations in weeks when small children came to visit, notably food waste and nappies.

Here's the results for our 2-person household over 52 weeks from April 2010:

Description

kilograms

% of

total

Recycling



- Food

116.38

36.4

- Cardboard

33.59

10.5

- Paper

48.6

15.2

- Drinks cartons

4.65

1.5

- Plastic bottles

8.41

2.6

- General plastic

17.25

5.4

- Glass

47.62

14.9

- Cans

2.45

10.8

- Foil, batteries, cartridges

0.87

0.3

- Garden waste

15.9

5

Recycling total

311.62

92.5

Landfill

23.86

7.5

We haven't repeated the exercise for obvious reasons!

There are lots of things to think about - e.g. in 'Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things' by Michael Braungart and William McDonough




greenlivesico.jpg

Rubbish and recycling