Facts & Figures
Did you know ...
Southland Waste Statistic's
Southlanders throw out 5,500 bus-loads of rubbish each year Almost half (42 percent) of the waste to landfill in Southland is compostable i.e. foods scraps, organic material, garden waste, kitchen waste Timber is the second largest material in the landfill at 11 percent Paper and Plastic make up 21 percent of the materials found in the site Over 48 tonnes of glass is dumped in the landfill each week
|
| |
Excavator pushing rubbish up the |
The Life of Litter
How long does it take for rubbish to breakdown?
| Paper takes ... 2.5 months Orange Peel takes ... 6 months Milk Carton takes ... 5 years Cigarette Butt ... 10-12 years Plastic Bag ... 10-20 years Disposable Nappy ... 75 years Tin Can ... 100 years Beer Can ... 200-500 years Styrofoam ... Never (immortal) Sourced from: NZ Zero Waste Trust | 
| |
| A bale of tin cans ready to recycled |
Glass Facts
- Glass is one of the earliest man-made materials, in 4000BC glass was used in the Middle East as decorative beads.
- Glass is made from four main ingredients - sand, soda ash, limestone, and other additives for colouring or special treatment.
- In glass manufacturing process, extra raw materials can be added to give it a particular colour or quality. For example iron is added for a brown or green colour, cobalt for blue, alumina for durability and boron to improve resistance to heat or cold.
Source: Recycle Now
Packaging Facts
- Packaging makes up less than 12 percent by weight of the NZ household waste stream
- Over 50 percent of packaging waste is imported into NZ
- Over 95 percent of NZer's have access to facilities to recycle paper, glass, cans and plastics 1 and 2 and 77 percent of NZ Councils offer households a kerbside recycling service
Source: Packaging Council of NZ
Steel Facts
- Steel is the worlds most recycled material
- Steel packaging is used for drink cans, food and petfood cans, paint cans, aerosols and containers of many other household and industrial products
- The average NZ family uses 6 steel cans per week
- Today's steel can weighs 40 percent less than it did 30 years ago - saving raw materials and making lighter work of the weekly shopping basket
Source: CANBAC - Steel Can Recycling Campaign NZ
Nappy Facts
- A baby will need up to 6,000 nappy changes for the first two and a half years. At 50cents per nappy that equals $3,000 being thrown into the landfill (and excludes the refuse cost)
- Modern cloth nappies cost less than half that of disposables and there are further savings if you reuse them on your second or third child.
- Most parents save $500-$1,000 in the first year of the baby's life. Scaled up over the nappy wearing life of two children and you can save over $5,000!
- An estimated 1 million nappies are landfilled every day in New Zealand - this is based on 145,000 children under 2 and half using 6-7 disposables per day.
For more nappy facts visit NZ Zero Waste Trust
Plastic Bag Facts
- Every year 4 million NZers use 1 billion plastic shoppings bags
- A person's use of a plastic check-out bag can be counted in minutes - however long it takes to get from the shops to their homes
- In the marine environment plastic bag litter is lethal, killing at least 100,000 birds, whales, seals and turtles every year
- Over 40,000 plastic check-out bags are dumped in landfills every hour in NZ
Source: Plastic Bag-Free NZ
