Discarded Christmas cards and wrapping paper can fuel 20 moon trips by a double-decker bus and back — the staggering equivalent of 18 million km.
Imperial College of London scientists have shown how waste paper could be turned into high grade biofuel, with the help of micro-organisms, to power motor vehicles.
Some 1.5 billion cards and 83 sq km of wrapping paper are thrown away by British residents over Christmas.
This could provide five to 12 million litres of biofuel, enough to run a bus for 18 million km. But they go into a landfill or are recycled in local schemes, according to an Imperial College statement.
***
‘Breastfeeding can lower blood pressure risk’
London: To-be-moms please take note: Mothers who exclusively breastfeed their babies for at least six months can lower their risk of developing high blood pressure later in life by a quarter, a new study has claimed. Researchers at the University of North Carolina in the US found that women who gave their babies formula or breast fed for less than three months were almost a quarter more likely to develop blood pressure problems.
The study involving nearly 56,000 women with at least one child concluded that mothers who breast fed for at least six months were less likely to develop hypertension over a 14 year period than those who bottle fed. The research, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, estimated that up to 12 per cent of high blood pressure cases among women with children could be linked to “suboptimal” breast feeding. — PTI