Your Waste. Your Future. Your Say.
Hertfordshire's waste – the vital statistics
Each household in Hertfordshire produces, on average, 1.2 tonnes of waste per year – that's the weight of a Mini Cooper.
Last year, households in Hertfordshire produced over half a million tonnes of waste.
Waste is collected by the district or borough councils but disposed of by Hertfordshire County Council. The combined cost of this was over £40 million last year.
Hertfordshire currently recycles 33% of its waste – a figure which compares well with the national average of 27%.
Hertfordshire sends an estimated 10,000 tonnes of disposable nappies to landfill each year.
60% of Hertfordshire's household waste is currently sent to landfill sites, the majority of which is sent outside of the county.
Most of Hertfordshire's landfill contracts run out in the next three years, and there is growing pressure to deal with more of the county's waste within our borders.
If we can encourage 3,000 more households in Hertfordshire to home compost, we could divert 1,260 tonnes from landfill over three years.
New legislation will mean that waste disposal costs are likely to rise towards £100 per tonne, compared to the present rate of around £35 per tonne.
Hertfordshire is the most densely populated county in the UK. There are over 1 million people living in 430,000 households.
The extra 83,000 new homes proposed for Hertfordshire via the East of England Plan could generate over 100,000 extra tonnes of waste for the county to dispose of.
General waste and recycling facts
Every year, the average UK dustbin contains enough unrealised energy for 500 baths, 3500 showers or 5,000 hours of television.
The energy saving from recycling one glass bottle will:
- Power a 100 watt light bulb for almost an hour
- Power a computer for 25 minutes
- Power a colour TV for 20 minutes
- Power a washing machine for 10 minutes
Glass is perfect for recycling – you can recycle it back into new bottles and jars over and over again, without its clarity deteriorating. And glass products can use up to 90% recycled material.
Probably the most important thing about recycling glass is the energy saving – when using recycled glass to make new containers, 315Kg of CO2 is saved for every tonne of recycled glass used.
Landfill sites released 20% of the UK's methane emissions in 2002.
On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every 7 weeks.
150 million plastic carrier bags are used in the UK each week — they can take up to 500 years to decay in landfill.
All the newsprint (the paper for newspapers) manufactured in the UK is now made from 100% recycled paper.