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Recycling Facts To Make You Think

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Some Interesting Recycling Facts

Do you know that:

* The unreleased energy contained in the average dustbin each year could power a television for 5,000 hours? Err, ok maybe not the best use for it but better than adding to the waste mountain :-)

* The largest lake in the Britain could be filled with rubbish from the UK in only 8 months?

* Up to 60% of the rubbish that ends up in the average dustbin could be recycled?

* On average, around 16% of the money you spend on a product pays for the packaging, which ultimately ends up as rubbish?

* As much as 50% of the waste thrown in the dustbin could be used as compost?

* Up to 80% of an average car can be recycled?

* 9 out of 10 people would recycle more if it were made easier?

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from Daily Eco Talk

I hope you find Recycling Facts interesting and informative. If you would like to know more, not only about recycling but about other issues affecting climate change and global warming you might like to have a look at Daily Eco Talk.



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Recycling News

Recycling stories making the news around the world.

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A Great Kids Starter Book On Recycling

Getting kids interested in recycling is a great way to help get things moving. Have you ever heard of pester power with sweets and toys? Well it can work just as well with your recycling efforts - you been warned!
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Recycling For Kids - Quick Tip 1

Getting kids involved in recycling is obviously a great idea and finding ways is dead easy if you do a little bit of lateral thinking.

For younger kids in particular one really simple way is to make use of the fact that when they first go to nursery and school they're invited to loads of parties.

Instead of buying a card get them to make one of their own by using old cards and wrappings. Kids of that age love being involved with anything arty and it helps you to explain to them how they can recycle just like you.

And don't forget... it's a great way to show how much you care about someone to actually spend time and thought on their card instead of just spending cash.

In fact why not do it for your friends as well?

What You Should Know About Recycling Plastic

There is approximately 3 million tonnes of plastic waste each year and more than half of it is packaging. Food packaging in particular tends to have a short life span as the packaging is disposed of as soon as it is opened and unfortunately, most of this will end up in a landfill site.

Environmental agency reports estimate that 80% of plastic waste is currently reaching landfill sites and this is a major cause for concern as the space required for land fill sites is increasing.

Recycling Plastic - Fast Facts

Did you know:

    In the UK around 455,000 tonnes of plastic bottles are thrown away every year - that's the equivalent of about 9 billion bottles

    Only 25 2 litre plastic bottles are needed to make a recycled fleece jacket

    Recycling 1 plastic bottle will save enough energy to power a 60 Watt light bulb for 6 hours

    Nearly 11% of all household waste is plastic and 40% of that are plastic bottles

Interesting Recycling Facts - Take Two

* Recycling one tonne of paper in your office saves nearly six tonnes of CO2 compared to throwing it away.

* If just one million people would recycle their glass, metal, newspaper and plastic they would help us reduce CO2 emissions by an incredible 192,000 kilograms.

* If one million people (no, not the same million!) would reduce their rubbish by only ten percent then every year we would have 600,000 less CO2 in the atmosphere.

* Recycling one tonne of plastic saves 2,600 litres of oil compared to making new plastic.

Freecycling As Recycling

Many of us forget the slogan "reduce, reuse, recycle" and that we should all operate in that order and not just recycle.

A simple way of reusing is to be part of the growing band of people who freecycle. In fact around the world there are millions who are now taking part in this method of saving precious resources and you can find your local group by visiting http://www.freecycle.org/

Here on Squidoo there's also a great lens by ThePrancingPony that you may also wish to checkout for more on Freecycling - http://www.squidoo.com/freecycling

50 Great Ways To Get The Kids Involved In Recycling

If we can make recycling fun for kids they'll be much more likely to get involved and this book by Marion Elliott certainly does that.

It's targeted at children aged between 9 and 12 which means they're likely to be able to not only get on with the projects themselves but that they're also going to be capable of developing their own ideas for recycling things afterwards.

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Recycling For Kids - Quick Tip 2

Recycool


This is specifically for children in the UK and Ireland but there are no doubt similar schemes in your part of the world. If not then why not start one yourself?

Every year throughout Europe there are enough mobile phone handsets thrown away to make a chain stretching from London all the way to Perth. And it's not just mobiles there are printer cartridges and PDAs that are just discarded as well.

Instead of being added to the growing landfill problem they can usually be recycled and re-used and I've just found a company based in the UK that currently have over 6,000 schools there and in Ireland who are already involved.

For older kids there are posters and letters that could be used to connect with local businesses to gain their help and support in raising funds.

Why not get your child involved in recycling and helping their school as well? Recycool have a great programme that allows them to do just that. You can get all the details and get started here at Recycool.

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Sites Worth A Visit

Recyclezone
Recyclezone, the site for schools, children and teachers that tells you what's what in the world of waste!Although this site is called recyclezone, recycling is only one of the things we can do about waste. We talk about the 3Rs -reduce, reuse, recycle.

A neat site for parents who are looking to introduce their children to the world of recycling!

Climate Change At Earth 911
We hear about climate change in the news-from devastating hurricanes to heat events-but what is it and what can we do to help stop climate change? Climate change refers to any significant change in measures of climate (such as temperature, precipitation, or wind) lasting for an extended period (decades or longer).

Recycool
A brilliant way of raising cash for schools as well as getting older kids interested in the possibilities of recycling.

They even plant a tree just for a school signing up!

Friends Of The Earth
Our throw-away culture is risking people's health and squandering the world's natural resources.

Prioritising recycling and investing in waste reduction would go a long way to solving the waste crisis. Instead the Government is opting for wide-scale incineration.

Eco Friendly Kids
Not just a great resource for encouraging children into recycling but for making them aware of all the eco friendly was of living.

Waste Aware Schools
The Waste Aware Schools Pupil Zone is packed with information about how you can reduce, reuse and recycle at School.

Why not check out the recycling journeys to find out what happens to the materials that you recycle?


There are also some very good resources for teachers in the staff section of the site.

Fun Games For Kids
Here's a site where kids can play with glass safely and learn about the benefits of recycling it at the same time.

Recycling Experiments For Kids

Garbage and Recycling (Young Discoverers: Environmental Facts and Experiments)

Garbage and Recycling (Young Discoverers: Environmental Facts and Experiments)

by: Rosie Harlow, Sally Morgan

Amazon Price: $3.52 (as of 02/13/2012)Buy Now

A great little book (32 pages) for children aged 4-8. It's excellent for your young discoverers if you're trying to get them involved at an early age when they want to make a game of recycling. There are a good selection of activities and experiments for them to get involved with that will make a good base for them to build on later.

Here's a list of the contents:

What a waste
Where does it go
Nature's recycling
Garbage that won't rot
Waste not, want not
Gardens and garages
Down the drain
Plenty of paper
Banks for bottles
Cans count
Recycling plastic
Recycle your rags

Do YOU Recycle?

Time to own up on your recycling habits - be honest now!

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Do You Know Any Good Recycling Tips?

Then recycle your knowledge here!

Please share your tips for helping to reduce, re-use or recycle. If you know of any websites that should be added to the "Sites Worth A Visit" please share them with us all.

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Amazing Recycling Skills

if you think your recycling is good read this

The Strauss family in Gloucestershire have a truly amazing attitude to recycling. In the past year they have produced just one small dustbin on rubbish!

They have taken a proactive approach to the need to recycle and even the rubbish they did have to consign to the bin included items which are only there because their council don't recycle those things.

Here's the BBC video

Help Your Child Understand Global Warming

Evelyn Saenz has created a wonderful lens that will help children gain a good understanding of global warming. Evelyn has a real passion for teaching which shines through in this outstanding lens.
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An Easy Way To Recycle

Don't forget that you can recycle many things simply and easily direct from your home & garden by composting them.

Take a look at another of my lenses to see how simple it is to get started. Oh and the kids love it as well because it's something they can do on a daily basis!
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LensSeller

I first got an interest in recycling after watching a TV film 6 years ago. That led me to discover just what a mess we're making of the planet. And no... more »

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