Environmental Graffiti

London Underground passengers discard an average of 9 and a half tonnes of freesheet paper a day on the network’s three busiest lines: the Northern, Piccadilly and Jubilee lines.

Photo by Xarj

9 and a half tonnes comes out to be about 10 and a half tons in American measurements. The amount of waste could be up to four times higher, since the Tube only counts three of the cities twelve lines.

“There has been a huge increase in the numbers of free newspapers being left on trains; typically 9.5 tonnes are picked off trains each day now, compared with 3 tonnes in the past,” said Tube Lines.

A spokeswoman for the company said the waste was straining company resources.

“There are so many of these free newspapers when the trains get to the end of their journeys now. There are piles of paper and it is having an impact,” said the spokeswoman.

“There is very little that we can do other than ask London Underground to encourage people to take their papers with them,” said the Tube Lines spokeswoman.

Via :: Guardian

Simmons also blogs at Thoughts on Global Warming

If you want to find out more about our environment, recycling, and what you can do to help, why not subcribe to our RSS feed, we’ll even give you a free album.