The Cost of Christmas

￡30 billion: The amount Britons will spend celebrating Christmas this year

Compiled by Cahal Milmo

The Inedpendent (December 24 2004)


SPENDING

￡4.2 billion: The amount Britons spent on cosmetics this Christmas

￡4.1 billion: Britain's aid budget for the developing world in 2004

￡813: Average spending per adult on celebrating Christmas (￡55 less than last year)

￡50: The per capita annual income in Ethiopia

￡20 million: Amount made by Mark Tilden, British robot expert who invented Robosapien, this year's hit toy

￡20 million: Amount nations of sub-Saharan Africa are paying in debt to developed world every sixteen hours


EATING

7,000: Average calories consumed by Britons on Christmas Day

780: Minutes running needed to burn off 7,000 calories

7: Number of days a child refugee in Darfur could survive on 7,000 calories

￡12: Average cost per head in UK of Christmas lunch

￡12: Cost of a month's supply of grain for a family in drought-hit Malawi

30,525: Number of miles your Christmas dinner will have travelled to reach your table - vegetables alone are likely to have come 15,800 miles

4: Miles walked daily by families in developing world in search of water


HEALTH

5 million: Britons will suffer a stomach upset over festive season

2 million: People in developing world killed this year by diarrhoeal disease


CRIME

244,000: Homes in Britain likely to be burgled over festive season

75,058: Britons spending Christmas in prison

4.2%: Rise in murder rate over Christmas


ENVIRONMENT

83 square kilometers: Amount of wrapping paper used (enough to cover 33 Hyde Parks)

3,000,000: Tons of extra rubbish generated - enough to fill 120 million wheelie bins

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=595883

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Bill Totten http://www.ashisuto.co.jp/english/