Shopping & Waste  

The combination of over consumption, excessive packaging, and built-in obsolescence, leads to the prolific generation of rubbish. The UK generates enough waste to fill the Albert Hall every 2 hours – about 500kg per person per year, of which only approx 180kg is recycled.

Milton Keynes has a recycling rate of around 50%.  This will rise now fabrics and batteries can be added to the weekly collection.  While this is a respectable rate by UK standards it remains well below much of the rest of Europe.

In order to be able to reduce our waste we first need to reduce the amount we buy. We also need to consider at the time of purchase how we will dispose of the item at the end of its useful life. When discarding an item we should first consider if it could be repaired or reused by someone else rather than simply throwing it away.

Waste matters because the energy and raw materials required for manufacturing many items are finite.  Using recycled materials in manufacture preserves these precious natural resources and saves considerable amounts of energy. According to RecycleNow, UK recycling saves around 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – equivalent to taking 5 million cars off the road.

There are more than 1500 landfill sites in the UK.  Together they produce around a quarter of the country's methane emissions.  Some sites,including Bletchley, harvest landfill gas and use it for electricity generation.