How many environmentalists does it take to reach the moon?

Today is Blog Action Day which means that blog-owners everywhere are writing about the environment. I figured you would quickly become sick of being told how materialistic you are and how plastic bags are your enemies, so I decided to bring you some interesting environmental facts instead.

Every year Americans throw away 18 billion disposable nappies, a sufficient number to reach the moon and back seven times.

Cycling is an environmentally-friendly way of getting around but we lazy Londoners only get on our bikes for four per cent of our total journeys compared with up to 20 per cent in Germany and 50 per cent in Holland.

Every year in the UK we use 13 billion steel cans. If you placed these end to end they would stretch to the moon and back three times. Again with the moon comparisons.

Each year in Britain we throw away 28 million tonnes of rubbish. This weighs the same as three and a half million double decker buses, which would go around the world one and a half times. Or part way to the moon. But only if you rocket-powered them, which would make them very environmentally-unfriendly indeed.

The energy we save when recycling one glass bottle is enough to light a traditional light bulb for four hours.

If you were to use 300,000,000 cans to make a giant pyramid out of recyclable cans, then climb to the top of this pyramid and extend both your arms, you would probably fall off.