Random facts

The idea of this page is fairly simple. It's a page to build up a collection of 'random' facts - not really random, something to do with sustainability or the need for it, or similar related facts. Once there's a sufficient collection here then they can be used for something like a 'Fact of the Day' on one of the main pages. Remember of course to include the source. Within the sections please put most recent edits at the top.

Biodiversity

 * The great apes are the closest living relatives to man, bonobos sharing 98.4 per cent of our DNA, gorillas 97.7 per cent and orang-utans 96.4 per cent. Source: Defra

Environment quality
(England) Defra
 * 86% of fly-tipping takes place in predominantly urban authorities where 63%  of people in England live. Source:

London Food Link

 * 34% food in UK is eaten out of the home, (in US it’s 48%) It’s estimated by 2025 that 50% of food consumption will be out of the home. (Food and Drink Federation Eating out of Home Trends 2000)
 * During 2002-3, the UK market for organic food & drink grew by over 10% and annual sales now exceed £1billion. (Organic Market Report, Soil Association, 2005).
 * 65% of shoppers buy local whilst a further 9% would like to if it was available. This is compared with 61% purchasing last year. Of those purchasing 40% would like to buy more if it was more available. (Gerardine Padbury, Retail and Foodservice Opportunites for Local Food IGD, 2006) / London, Food



Make Roads Safe
Source: Commission for Global Road Safety News release, Thursday, June 8 2006 / Road Safety
 * Each year 1.2 million people are killed and 50 million injured around the world in road traffic crashes
 * more than 85% of road traffic casualties are in low and middle income countries

Miscellaneous

 * The UK’s bluebell woodlands represent 20 per cent of bluebells worldwide. Wildlife trusts / Biodiversity


 * Three quarters of the UK population would support the introduction of a new law to combat climate change. Friends of the Earth


 * "80 per cent of the British population living in an urban environment - far higher than the global average" Defra / Urban focus


 * "The capital is particularly sensitive to future temperature increases, due in part to the large urban heat island effect it generates. The city centre can be up to 8C warmer than the surrounding countryside." 'London's Warming'. London Climate Change Partnership study. Defra / London, Climate change


 * In 2005 a study for the New Economics Foundation found that street markets in London were "substantially cheaper" than supermarkets for fruit and vegetables. Friends of the Earth / Food

Natural resources

 * Worldwide, some 60 million indigenous people are almost completely reliant on forest resources for their livelihoods - for food and fuel, medicines and materials.

Source: FOEI's The Tyranny of Free Trade: wasted natural wealth and lost livelihoods, December 2005, www.foei.org/publications/index.html
 * Almost 40 million people are involved in fisheries globally and 90 percent of these are employed in small-scale artisanal fishing.



UK Coast

 * Wherever you are in the UK, you’re never more than 70 miles from the sea: Furthest distance from the sea: The Ordnance Survey has calculated that the furthest point from the sea in all of the UK is: Latitude: 52º 43.6'N, Longitude: 1º 37.2'W - which is very close to the village of Coton in the Elms in Derbyshire.


 * The UK’s 17,820 km (11,073 miles) of coastline is host to an array of flora and fauna; in fact more than 40,000 species - around 50% of the UK’s plants and animals - live in our seas - including intricate corals, whales & dolphins, giant (but harmless) basking sharks, seals, puffins and a myriad of fish, crustaceans and molluscs.

Source: Wildlife Trusts news release