Recycling Facts and Figures

From 23 June 1997 to 22 June 2007 you have helped to recycle 213,949.86 tonnes of product. All of this product has been sold to industries in Australia and throughout Asia to be made into new goods and packaging.

As a direct result of your contributions, together we have achieved some very major positive environmental savings such as:

Enough power has been saved to supply 164,560 homes with a year supply of electricity.
588,105 cubic metres of landfill has been saved.
Enough water has been saved that would fill 1414 Olympic size swimming pools.
Air pollution has been reduced equal to that of taking 25,572 cars off our roads permanently.
Saved 2.77 million trees from harvest.
The total weight of the product sold is equal to 118,560 family size cars.

How residents of Cessnock, Lake Macquarie and Maitland helped the environment by recycling.

As a result of recycling over the past 10 years you have helped to achieve the following results:

589,593 cubic metres of landfill avoided
1,879,000 trees saved by recycling paper and cardboard
3,543,745,000 litres of water saved enough to fill 64,432 average size backyard swimming pools
3,563,181 gigajoules of energy saved enough to power to supply 165,000 homes for an entire year
316,645 barrels of oil saved
106,732 tonnes of Greehouse gas reductions.
Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is equal to that of taking 25,634 cars off our road permanently.

Cessnock

At June 2007 17645 services are performed each fortnight with an average of 215.443 kilos of recyclables from each home every year.

Lake Macquarie

As at June 2007, 71 315 homes are serviced every fortnight with an average of 249.683 kilos of recyclables per home per annum.

Maitland

As at June 2007, 23640 homes are serviced every fortnight with an average of 231.242 kilos of recyclables from each home each year.

Interesting Facts

A recycling truck can hold the contents of 400 - 450 recycling bins.

In 10 years of operation, HRR has already collected and emptied approximately 27 million recycling bins.

Recycling really does make a difference. It saves valuable natural resources, saves landfill space and cuts down on energy use by reprocessing products instead of using virgin materials. For example:-

By adding used steel to new steel we can save up to 75% of the energy needed if the steel was made from raw materials. Air pollution is reduced by almost 90%, and water usage reduces by 40%.
Similarly with aluminium, 95% less energy is needed to make aluminium from used cans rather than from the raw material bauxite.
Recycling 1 tonne of glass saves 1.1 tonnes of raw materials (sand, limestone, soda ash), and energy use is cut by 25%.
If Australia stopped recycling today we would need to cut down over 18 million trees to meet our current demand for paper.
Each tonne of recycled paper saves 0.3m³ of landfill space, 30,000 litres of water and 4,100 kilowatt hours of electricity.
Paper recycling uses 99% less water than producing white paper from wood chips.
PET plastic (number 1) is recycled to make a product called "eco-fleece" that is used to stuff pillows, doonas, ski-suits and sleeping bags. It can also be woven for use in synthetic carpet.
Other plastics such as HDPE (number 2) and PP (number 5) are recycled into garden edging, sign posts, compost bins, speed humps, plant pots as well as many other products.
New plastic is made from non-renewable resources such as crude oil, gas and coal, and by recycling used plastics we can save both valuable resources and energy.

Average household rubbish by volume