9.5 tonnes of free London papers chucked daily

If you live in London, it's a pretty dead cert that you've seen the huge piles of free newspapers discarded everyday at Underground stations -- or at least encountered a few of their over-zealous distributers. What you may not know is that every day these piles add up to a huge 9.5 tonnes -- on three of the London Underground lines alone. That means that the total amount of waste could be four times higher across the whole network.

This huge number is largely down to the three main free newspapers in London; the Metro, London Lite and London Paper. The news emerged after the contractor in charge of maintaining the Northern, Piccadilly and Jubilee lines complained about the extra waste caused by the papers.

"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," a Tube Lines employee told The Guardian.

The papers are being blamed for the company missing one of its 'ambience' targets. These are targets on how clean and tidy the carriages are basically how good the customer's experience is. Missing these targets means they get paid less, so it's safe to assume that free papers aren't popular in the Tube Line offices.

There are things you can do to cut down on all of this waste. The most obvious one is to avoid taking newspapers from distributors and instead try to pick a used one up on the tube or bus instead -- you could even take it home to recycle or wrap your Christmas presents with.

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