interesting facts

— On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every seven weeks.

— 70% less energy is required to recycle paper compared with making it from raw materials.

— Glass takes between 4000 to a million years to decompose in a landfill so in effect it is infinitely recyclable.

— Every eight months the UK produces enough waste to fill Lake Windermere, (Lake District, Cumbria).

— It is estimated that there are 90 million redundant mobile phones in the UK.

— Every UK household produces over one ton of rubbish every year.

— Over Christmas as much as 83km² of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey.

— Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute. (click image to enlarge)

— The energy saved by recycling one plastic bottle will power a 60W light bulb for six hours.

— Incinerating 10,000 tonnes of waste creates one job, land-filling the same amount of waste creates six jobs but recycling this much waste creates 36 jobs. (click image to enlarge)

— Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a colour TV for 15 minutes. It is not known how long glass takes to break down, but it’s so long that glass made in the Middle East over 3000 years ago can still be found today.

— Once an aluminium can is recycled it can be part of a new can within six weeks. If all the aluminium cans sold in the UK were recycled, there would be 14 million fewer full dustbins each year.

— It takes just 25 two litre drink bottles to make one adult size fleece.

— U.S. – Over 75% of waste is recyclable, but we only recycle about 32% of it. (click image to enlarge)

— We generate 21.5 million tons of food waste each year. If we composted that food, it would reduce the same amount of greenhouse gas as taking 2 million cars off the road.

— If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save 25 million trees each year.

— Every year 18 million tons of waste are land filled in the U.K. (click image to enlarge)

— 70% less energy is required to recycle paper compared with making it from raw materials.

— Only 1% of our planet’s water supply can be used. 97% is ocean water and 2% is frozen solid in the Arctic, for now.

— An estimated 50,000 species inhabiting our tropical forests become extinct annually. That’s an average of 137 species a day.

— Rainforests are cut down at a rate of 100 acres per minute.

— It is estimated that 86% of species that exist on our planet are as yet unknown to us.

— If all the ice in glaciers and ice sheets melted, the sea level would rise by about 80 meters (262 ft), about the height of a 26-story building.

— If sea level should rise by 3 meters (10 feet), many of the World’s coastal cities, like Venice, London, New Orleans, and New York, would be under water.

— Local summer temperatures in the Arctic show the past century may have been the warmest in the last 44,000 years.

— A single tree produces approximately 260 pounds of oxygen per year. This means two mature trees can supply oxygen to support a family of four, for a year.

— A single tree absorbs one ton of carbon dioxide during its life. Think how much gas is required to weigh one ton.

— The lungs of Our Planet. Forests cover one third of the Earth with rainforests responsible for just under 5%. Before humans began clearing forests there were twice as many trees.

Fish & Sea mammals

— About 14% of the world’s protein consumption comes from fish.

— Many abyssal creatures (those who live at the bottom of the ocean) glow in the dark, like fireflies.

— The largest recorded blue whale was 33 meters (110 feet) long, about the height of an eleven storey building.

— Manatees, (large marine mammals), have been mistaken for mermaids by some explorers.

— The American alligator is the largest reptile in North America.

— The octopus is considered to be the most intelligent invertebrate. It has complex camera eyes like humans with its optic lobes taking up about 30% of its brain, again the same as humans.

— Starfish don’t have brains.

— Turtles can breathe through their bum holes.

Birds

— Albatross drink seawater and only come ashore to lay their eggs and raise their young.

Coral

— Coral is a colony of tiny animals that have porous limestone skeletons which can be used for bone repair in humans.

— Coral reefs are home to about 10% of all the fish that people eat.

— Coral reefs cover about one-fiftieth of the ocean floor and are home to around a quarter of all marine species.

— Corals produce a natural sunscreen which chemists are trying to extract for use by humans.

— An ostrichs’ eye is bigger than its brain.

Insects

— Ants can lift 50 times their own weight and pull 30 times their own weight.

— Butterflies taste with their feet.

Mammals

— The fastest land animal in the world is the cheetah.

— Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.

— Bats are the only mammals capable of true flight.

Humans & other stuff

— A UK company has developed an ice cream containing jellyfish proteins. It glows when you lick it.

— On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every seven weeks.

— In Lebanon, men are legally allowed to have sex with animals, but only female animals. Sex with a male animal is punishable by death.

Rocks & that

— Most of the ocean floor is made of basalt. This igneous rock continues to flow out of Earth from chains of underwater volcanoes known as “mid-ocean ridges.”

— The most productive volcanic systems on Earth are hidden under an average of 8,500 feet (2,600 m) of water. Beneath the oceans a global system of mid-ocean ridges produces an estimated 75% of the annual output of magma.

Plants, trees, etc

— Stinging nettles produce formic acid which they hold in brittle hollow hairs. When you crush a plant, you break the hairs, causing the acid to burn your skin.

— 441 new species of plants and vertebrates have been discovered in the Amazon rainforest in the last four years alone.

The Cosmos

— Mercury appears to be a huge ball of iron covered by a thin layer of rock and thought by many astronomers to be the core of a once larger planet. It takes 59 days to make a rotation but only 88 days to circle the Sun. This means there are fewer than 2 days in a Mercury year.

— The largest volcano in the solar system is on Mars and called ‘Olympus Mons’. It’s around 27 kilometres high with a crater 81 kilometres wide.

— It rains diamonds on Neptune and Uranus.

— On Venus it rains sulphuric acid and snows metal.

— A teaspoon of neutron star weighs more than everyone on earth.

— The wind on Neptune is so fast it breaks the sound barrier.

Planet Earth

— The amount of gold in the Earth’s core would cover the entire surface of the planet 1.5 feet deep.

— Every planet except Earth is named after a mythological god or goddess. Seven of the eight planets in the solar system are named after Roman gods but Earth comes from the old English word, ‘ertha’ meaning ground or land.

— About 70 per cent of the planet’s surface is covered with water leaving 30 per cent of land making up the islands and continents.

— The rainforest is huge, the Amazon alone contains one third of the planet’s species.

— There is actually no solid land under the North Pole, it is just sea ice. Imagine if it all melted, how vast that ocean would be.

— If you stood on the North Pole, you’d weigh more than at the equator, due to the varying effect of gravity.