Milford Harrison edits what he describes as a “thrilling” journal called Waste Planning, and he was so struck by the units that kept appearing in the press releases he received that he wrote an article about them. It includes such gems as: “Londoners are producing enough domestic rubbish to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool every 4 hours” (Museum of London, July 2003), and “About half of the tyres disposed of in Wales each year – enough to fill 444 double-decker buses – just disappear” (Environment Agency, April 2003).

Harrison published his article late last year, but the tide of idiosyncratic waste disposal units continues unabated. “In a year, we fill enough rubbish bins to stretch to the moon,” claimed BBC TV’s Countryfile on Sunday 21 March. And just in case viewers found this unit a little unwieldy, the programme gave an alternative, explaining that every hour the UK produces enough rubbish to fill the Royal Albert Hall in London.