Royal Statistical Society: “This year’s Statistics of the Year announcement has a distinctly environmental theme as statistics relating to plastic waste and the use of solar energy emerged as the winners of this year’s International and UK categories respectively. The commended entries cover a plethora of other issues, from the reduction in global ‘absolute poverty’ to the number of Jaffa cakes present in its Christmas tube – illustrating the phenomenon of ‘shrinkflation’. The winning International Statistic of 2018 is 90.5%: the proportion of plastic waste that has never been recycled. Estimated at 6,300 million metric tonnes, it’s thought that around 12% of all plastic waste has been incinerated, with roughly 79% accumulating in either landfill or the natural environment (as sourced from Production, Use, and Fate of all plastics ever made by R Geyer, J R Jambeck and K Lavender Law). ‘It’s very concerning that such a large proportion of plastic waste has never been recycled’, says RSS President, Sir David Spiegelhalter, who chaired the Stats of the Year judging panel. ‘This statistic helps to show the scale of the challenge we all face. It has rightly been named the RSS’s ‘International Statistic of the Year’ for 2018.’

The winner of the UK Statistic of 2018 is 27.8%: the peak percentage of all electricity produced in the UK due to solar power on 30 June this year. This surprising figure reflects that fact that solar power was, while only briefly, the country’s number one electricity source – ahead of gas (sourced from Electric Insights)…”