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 separating 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 ensure 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 millions 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 is reused in the UK, the majority of it to make new glass bottles and jars.
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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 a facility in Kirklees where they are sorted into steel or aluminium. They are then sold on to melt shops within the UK to be recycled into new metal products.
PLASTIC BOTTLES
All of your plastic bottles are processed at S. Walkers then sold on to Eurokey Recycling. 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.
CLOTHES AND SHOES
All of your clothes and shoes go to JMP Wilcox in the West Midlands. They process the textiles and then ship them to Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia. 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.
CARD AND CARDBOARD
All of your card and cardboard goes to Smurfit Kappa in Birmingham where it is recycled 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 the recycled products website 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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