Used tickets

I'd say they are recycled, as it's only paper that goes through them.

The number of single/ return tickets have fallen dramatically, as you could imagine. COLIN has describe the exact procedure, although the disposal of the tickets is fairly secure as the bins SHOULD not be accessible to the public, they then get collected by distribution services and end up as land fill.

However

Things are changing. Tubelines have introduced recycling facilities at most stations, and if the tickets are in a clear bag on their own - which they virtually always are - then there's a good chance they'd now be recycled, although I'm not sure how the mag strip recycles.

There is also a person at LU customer services who uses old tickets to make sculptures/ models, or so I was told by one of the duty managers one night as he wa collecting loads of bags of tickets for her.

;D

For those of us who are enviromentally aware, the word on the street is that enviromental savings will shortly become a bonus measure for group station managers. More power they save, more bonus.

Expect torches to be handed out with every Oyster.

..........................presumably the ones you shake the magnets to make the light. Don't want to be wasting batteries now, do we?

And the same to you ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D.

But they're one-use only. Very un-environmentally friendly.

I wonder just how many tonnes of tickets get collected every year?

www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/press-centre/press-releases/press-releases-content.asp?prID=6

Transport for London (TfL) and Friends of the Earth are hailing Oyster an environmental asset, with 100,000 fewer paper tickets being sold every day - a saving of 32 million paper tickets a year - since the Smartcard was introduced.


A paper ticket is 8.5cm in length, so laid end to end, this results in an annual saving of 2,720km of paper - more than six and a half times the distance covered by the entire Tube network.

Transport for London projects more than 3 million people will be using Oyster by mid-2005.

Comments Jay Walder, Managing Director of Finance and Planning at TfL:

�TfL�s Oyster card system has been a huge success. Nearly 3 million journeys are made every weekday with Oyster, making it a world leader in Smartcard ticketing. The phased introduction of Oyster has ensured success from the outset, bringing greater security and convenience for passengers.

�This significant reduction in paper waste is just one more example of the wider benefits Oyster is bringing to London.�

Friends of the Earth recycling campaigner, Claire Wilton, said:

"London's waste has grown by more than ten per cent in the last five years, so efforts to reduce it are very welcome. Avoiding the use of paper in tickets means that fewer trees will be felled, helping to preserve wildlife habitats across the world."

Notes for editors

An average of 500,000 paper tickets (daily LU single and return tickets) were sold daily in 2003; compared to an average 380,000 in 2004.
In square metres, the 32 million paper tickets saved each year would cover nearly 14 football pitches.
Transport for London introduced Oyster for public use in May 2003.