The UK produces more than 434 million tonnes of waste every year, enough to fill Wembley Stadium 50 times over. And it's the UK's landfill sites rather than our new national stadium that bears the brunt of this waste.

Over 75% of UK waste is sent to landfill sites - yet that figure could be reduced to less than 20% through effective recycling and composting of suitable materials.

Why recycle?

There are numerous benefits to recycling waste rather than sending it to landfill sites:

• it reduces the need for raw materials such as oil, wood and ore to produce new products from scratch

• it reduces the amount of energy needed to produce new products from raw materials

• it reduces the huge amount of waste sent every year to our increasingly-full landfill sites

• it reduces the risk from pollution and toxins produced by rotting waste in landfill sites

From paper and cardboard to plastic, glass and metal, the average UK household could be recycling as much as nearly 50% of its annual waste - a whopping 15 million tonnes a year in total. So if you're not already recycling as much as you can, there's every reason to start right now!

What to recycle

If you're unsure what materials you can and can't recycle, take a read through our quick guides:

Plastic	Glass
Metal tins and cans	Food waste
Paper	Cardboard
Mobile phones	Printer cartridges
Spectacles	Furniture

Where to recycle

An increasing number of local authorities now provide kerbside recycling collections which will take away much of your recyclable waste from your doorstep. Contact your local council if you're unsure how your local scheme works.

Alternatively, there are now hundreds of recycling facilities/collection banks throughout the UK so you should never be far from somewhere to deposit your recycling waste. Use the bank locator facility on the Recycle More website to find your nearest facilities.

Recycling Facts

If you're in any doubt about the benefits of recycling, check out these facts.

• Each UK household produces over 1 tonne of rubbish annually, amounting to about 31 million tonnes for the UK each year [source: Waste Watch]

• Almost half of the contents of our dustbins could potentially be recycled. In addition, we could compost an additional 30% of vegetable peelings and other organic waste that we throw away. [source: Waste Online]

• We get through 500,000 tonnes of cans per year. That equals 12 billion cans every year, 600 per home. Only 25% of these are currently recycled. [source: RecycleNow.com]

• Producing steel from recycled material saves 75% of the energy needed for steel made from virgin material.

• If all the aluminium drinks cans sold in the UK were recycled, there would be 14 million fewer full dustbins per year [source: www.alupro.org.uk]

• Recycling aluminium requires only 5% of the energy it takes to make new aluminium – and produces only 5% of the CO2 emissions.

• Just one recycled aluminium can saves enough energy to run a television set for three hours.

• Around 20% of all the household rubbish we throw away is paper and card , and approximately half of this is made up of newspapers and magazines, most of which can be recycled [source: RecycleNow.com]

• The energy saving from recycling just one glass bottle will power a 100 watt light bulb for almost an hour.

• Recycling a single plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for six hours.

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