It's an interesting question: 'what percentage of people recycle?' Unfortunately I still think that the number is too low.

Fortunately many of us do recycle at least some of the possible items, which is a great start, but take a look at these statistics about UK recycling (taken from Recycle More):

• Every year around 30 million tonnes of waste are thrown away from households.
• We send 600 million batteries to the landfill.
• Disposable nappies will take 500 years to decompose.
• Every tonne of paper that's been recycled can save 17 tress.
• By recycling 1 glass bottle we can save enough energy to power a light bulb for four hours.

The latest I found, the figure were around 23% for the amount of people that don't recycle. Yet even the people that do recycle think we don't recycle enough.

Recycling can make a huge difference for our future. Not all of our natural resources provide us with unlimited supplies, so at some time they will run out, and when they do we will never have them back again.

Recycling means making the most of what we already have, to reuse the materials instead of destroying them for good. Unfortunately this really is a necessary measure, since there is so much disposable packaging on just about everything we buy, from our food, to electronics, to household items.

There's also the added problem that if we don't recycle these items, they will simply be sent to landfill, where they take hundreds and hundreds of years to decompose, and let off many toxic gases in the meantime.

Recycling is helping to save our natural resources as well as saving energy. This is because it takes much less energy to recycle products than it does to create products brand new.

The great news is that there are many reasons you can start recycling today. Stop asking the question 'what percentage of people recycle?' and instead just start recycling!

There are a number of recycle banks, depending on where you live, as well as collection services. However, these will not normally collect all types of recyclable items, which is why it's important to research the ways you can recycle items such as:

• Electronics,
• Batteries,
• Clothes,
• Appliances,
• Shoes,
• And more!

You'd be surprised at just how much can be recycled somewhere!

It's important that we all become a little more aware of just why recycling is so important. It might take effort at first, but it'll soon become habit to recycle more. And all it takes is a little extra time to start helping our planet today.