What happens to your recycling?
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Where does it all go?
Warwick District Council operates a 'kerbside sort’ scheme. This means that all of your recycling is sorted by the collection crew into different compartments on the vehicle when collected.
It has been found that seperating materials at the kerbside results in less contamination of recyclables compared to wheeled bin collections where all of the material is mixed. Cleaner materials are more valuable to processors and ensures that a higher proportion, if not all, of the material collected can be recycled.
Once collected and sorted, recycled materials become valuable commodities in the worldwide market.
There are many recycling plants in the UK, reprocessing million of tonnes of material every year. For example:
- all of the newsprint manufactured here in the UK is now made from 100% recycled paper
- all of the organic (garden and kitchen) waste we collect is recycled here, usually quite close to where it is collected
- over 80% of the glass collected for recycling is used in the UK, the majority of it to make new glass bottles and jars.
Here's what happens to your recycling:
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PAPER
All of your paper goes to Aylesford News Print in Kent and gets turned back into quality newsprint paper that is sold back to the UK and Europe's leading newspaper and publishing printers
GLASS
All of your glass goes to Berryman in Yorkshire and goes through a process to be turned into Glass Cullet (waste/crushed glass). It is then sold on to glass manufacturers throughout the UK to be recycled back into glass containers.
CANS
All of your cans, aerosols and foil go to AMG Resources Ltd in Llannelli, Wales where they are sorted into steel or aluminium and then put through a shredder to be turned into nuggets. It is then sold on to melt shops within the UK
PLASTIC
All of our plastics are processed at S. Walkers then sold on to Alternate Waste Solutions. They sort them into individual plastic types then they go through a process to turn them into flakes. This is then sold on to companies which will melt it down to make various new products.
TEXTILES
All of our textiles go to European Textile Recycling in Staffordshire who process the textiles and then ship them to third world countries. These are then handed on to the people that most need them. Clothing that is too damaged for re-use is shredded and used as industrial rags.
CARDBOARD
All our cardboard goes to SITA Tipton or SITA Swindon to be processed. It gets turned back into brown paper which is then used to make more cardboard boxes/packaging.
BATTERIES
All domestic and car batteries go to G&P Batteries in Birmingham. They are broken down into their component parts which are then carefully sorted and recycled.
ENGINE OIL
Used engine oil is sent to SafetyKleen where it is processed for re-use or used as a fuel for industry.
There is an ever increasing range of high quality products that are made in the UK from recycled materials. Visit www.recycledproducts.org.uk to check out some of the types of recycled products on offer.
Visit Recycle Now for further information about what happens to recycling.
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