HSBC Commit to change
The world's local bankWhere does it all go?
- About two-thirds of household rubbish can be composted. The average person throws away 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of organic waste every year – equivalent to 2,800 banana skins.
- Food miles = the distance travelled by your food from the source to your table. The greater the distance travelled, the greater the impact on the environment. The transportation of food, including by air, train or road, wastes fuel energy and increases CO2 emissions.
- 4 million tonnes of household waste are dumped into Tokyo Bay each year. This has already created 250 hectares (620 acres) of new land and the entire bay could disappear within decades if this process is not changed.
- Americans throw away enough aluminium every three months to rebuild their entire commercial air fleet.
- Americans throw away enough office and writing paper annually to build a wall 12 feet (3.7 meters) high stretching from Los Angeles to New York City – a distance of 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometres).
- Every Sunday, Americans throw away 90% of their newspapers instead of recycling them. This wastes 500,000 trees.
- In a lifetime, the average American will throw away 600 times his or her adult weight in waste. This means that each adult will leave a legacy of 90,000 pounds (40,800 kilograms) of rubbish.
- If everyone in the US recycled just 10% of their newsprint, it would save about 25 million trees a year.
