Wales 'can celebrate' recycling target success

If you're looking for a way of getting rid of leftovers from Christmas - and would like to do your bit for the environment - this could be for you.

We're being urged to mark the New Year with a new effort to reuse things - and to recycle rubbish.

It's all part of a drive to get us to recycle 58% of our waste by next year.

Tom Sheldrick reports.

Source: Waste Awareness Wales

• Household recycling in Wales rose from 7% in 2001 to 52% in 2012/13

• A single drink can could be recycled as many as eight times in a year, saving enough energy to manufacture 160 new cans.

• 56% of card still ends up in landfill. 60% of card thrown in a Welsh black bag is made up of thin card packing like cereal boxes.

• In Wales, we produce enough household food waste to fill 10,587 double decker buses...

• Although they can be recycled, aerosols and foil are the two materials that the greatest proportion of people throw-away.

• Only 50% of plastic bottles in Wales get recycled. We use around 725,000 a day.

• Around 600 million UK household batteries (22,000 tonnes) – the equivalent weight of 110 Jumbo Jets – are sent to landfill each year. Most could be recycled instead.

Recycling organisation 'Waste Awareness Wales' says 2013 was a year of recycling success.

It comes as the target to recycle 52 per cent of waste was achieved. But the organisation says more needs to be done, with a target of 58% set for 2015-16.