If 50% of infants born in England and Wales (total births about 690,300 per year) are bottlefed for six months, then almost 26 million powdered infant formula cartons would be discarded every year.

In actual fact, the figures will be higher than that: while 76% mothers intend to breastfeed, over 50% of babies are formula fed at 6-8 weeks, and the rates continue to drop from then on.

Why breastfeed? - It's a global issue

Breastmilk is actually the most ecological food available to humans.

There is less consumption of natural resources and landfill space. The production and packaging of formula uses paper, glass, plastic, and metals, all of which need to be produced and disposed of.

"If every child in America were bottle-fed, almost 86,000 tons of tin would be needed to produce 550 million cans for one year's worth of formula. If every mother in the Great Britain breastfed, 3000 tons of paper (used for formula labels) would be saved in a year. But the formula is not the only problem. Bottles and [teats] require plastic, glass, rubber, and silicon; production of these materials can be resource-intensive and often leads to end-products that are not-recyclable. All these products use natural resources, cause pollution in their manufacture and distribution, and create trash in their packaging, promotion, and disposal. "
-From Mother Nature Loves Breastmilk", by Dia Michels

These materials are rarely recycled and the two most common disposal methods, landfill and incineration, both contribute greatly to pollution. Plastic feeding bottles and nipples will take 200 to 450 years to break down and it is impossible to determine the amount of time it takes for glass feeding bottles to break down. Landfill sites are hard to come by in many countries and they can pollute groundwater. Incineration releases pollutants into the air. The fumes from burned plastic can contain dioxin and other toxic substances.

If all U.S. babies were artificially fed, the 550 million formula cans sold each year, stacked end to end would circle the earth one and a half times. In 1987, 4.5 million feeding bottles were sold in Pakistan alone. These feeding bottles stacked end to end would reach the top of Mount Everest. Source: WABA Breastfeeding...WBW 1997- Nature's Way

The industrial processes used to create artificial feeding products for babies use vast quantities of energy and natural resources (fuels) and create air pollution (acid rain and greenhouse gases)

If you consider the global or even national scope, even the water and energy used in homes to prepare formula and the bottles and nipples themselves (washing, boiling, etc) have a tremendous impact.

Most artificial baby milks are made with cows milk, the production of which wastes land and resources and contributes to the pollution of the environment in numerous ways:

• Cows excretion and flatulance produce 100 million tons of methane every year, which equals 20% of the earths total emissions. (Methane is the second most problematic gaseous contribution to the greenhouse effect and global warming.)
• The fertilizers used to grow feed for dairy cows pollute rivers and groundwater.
• The ammonia from cow pastures and slurry tanks cause acid rain.
• The clearing of land for pasture means deforestation, an increase in greenhouse gases, the destruction of animal and plant species and erosion of the soil. For example, each kilogram of baby milk produced in Mexico "costs" 12.5 square meters of rainforest.

• Soy formulas require just as much natural resources and energy to produce and package.
• In Brazil, forests are cleared and burned to create soy plantations. The soya beans are then used to feed cattle and as the base for soy based formulas.
• The growing of soy beans requires a high input of fertilizers and irrigation.