Fact File 001 - Waste Are We Heading Towards A Wall-E World

So Its time to start a new section of this blog and I hope you all enjoy it.

Each week I'll be posting a couple of interesting facts on a variety of different topics related to conservation and ecology. Hopefully it will be something just to give you a break on a Monday.

This week the facts will focus on the global waste crisis!

• On average a person in the UK throws away their own body weigh in rubbish every seven weeks, whilst in the USA on average 4.4 pounds of rubbish is thrown away per person per day. When this number is converted it means Americans throw there body weight of rubbish away every 6 weeks.

• The United States, Russia, Japan, Germany and The United Kingdom make up the top five most wasteful nations as of 2006. However it is estimated that by 2030 China will be producing more than double that of the USA at 533 million tons.

• Sweden is currently setting an extremely good example which should be emulated by other nations. This is because although Sweden produces the same amount of waste when compared to other European countries, less than 1% of this waste makes it to landfills. This is due to the 32 waster to energy plants which have been consuming 50% of the countries waste annually. in fact these plants are now so effective that Sweden have been importing an extra 80,000 tons annually.

•  Finally of the 41 million metric tonnes of electronic waste binned every year (2014) the majority of it is illegally exported to African countries such as Ghana where there are vast graveyards of broken equipment. This waste is then stripped of valuable parts before being burnt which pours pollutants into the atmosphere.

To finish this post off I think you might enjoy a look around this website, it shows a couple of scary counters, check it out!

http://www.theworldcounts.com/counters/shocking_environmental_facts_and_statistics/world_waste_facts

Thanks for reading!

Check out this video from Redbull