NEWS FROM SODASTREAM

Research out today - 26th August - reveals over 10 million Brits are planning on celebrating the three-day weekend with parties, festivals and family get-togethers, predicted to result in over 40 million bin bags of rubbish.

Only a fifth of this will be recycled, and staggeringly half of the Britons surveyed in the study by Sodastream admit they do not feel guilty about it.

Furthermore 10% of this non-recycled rubbish will consist of plastic bottles with over a third of the nation admitting it hadn’t crossed their mind to try and reduce the number of plastic bottles they use, despite the impact it can have on the environment.

Brits top five bad habits this Bank Holiday are likely to include:
1. Throwing away food
2. Leaving lights on/wasting energy
3. Not recycling food packaging
4. Throwing away plastic bottles
5. Buying/using too many plastic bottles

The most wasteful cities in the UK when it comes to bottle waste are set to be Newcastle and Sheffield, with Brighton and Bristol the least wasteful.

The top five reasons cited for not recycling more in general were:
1. Local council do not provide enough facilities
2. It is easier to throw things in the bin
3. The bins the council provide are misleading
4. I am too busy to worry about it
5. I don’t know where to recycle

SodaStream research has revealed that Brits grossly underestimate the number of plastic bottles they use per week, with 60% believing they only use 1-4 plastic bottles, when the actual number is 15 each week.

SodaStream have commissioned the research to raise awareness of the practice of ‘pre-cycling’, reducing waste before there is any need for recycling. To illustrate the number of plastic bottles we waste in particular, SodaStream commissioned artist Bamber Hawes to create a ‘Bottle Family’ sculpture made up of 827 plastic bottles. This is the number of plastic carbonated bottles that an average family in the UK will use in a year; one SodaStream can help dramatically reduce all this bottle waste and more.

A spokesperson for SodaStream comments: “Looking at the Bank Holiday alone, it is staggering how much waste we will produce as a nation. With recycling so low on people’s agenda it makes the need for pre-cycling ever more pertinent so it is important to encourage people to reduce their everyday waste in the first place. SodaStream is the perfect alternative to other pre-packaged carbonated drinks.”