We’ve been asked by a few people whether all the stuff that we put in our bins for recycling is still being recycled. The answer is YES (assuming it’s been put in the bins correctly!). The district council have confirmed to us today as follows:
Dry Recyclables
Collected from the kerbside and taken to Holmen Recycling?s Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) in Tilbury, Essex where it is sorted mechanically and manually into the different material streams:
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Sent to Holmen Paper Mills in Braviken, Sweden and Madrid, Spain. Once there, the paper is blended with forestry managed pulp to manufacture reels of newsprint.
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Exported to China to known reputable mills.
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Sold to J&A Young (Jayplas) Ltd, Oakham, Leicestershire, for making into plastic products, such as street furniture, fence posts etc.
AMG Resources Ltd and Eurokey Ltd. The cans are smelted down and used for making an array of steel products.
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AMG Resources Ltd and Eurokey Ltd for making new beverage cans/food cans
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Compostables
The end product is used for agricultural applications on local farms in Cambridgeshire.
However , the council is having increasing problems with contamination – which is something we will write about tomorrow.
And I would say congratulations to Rochford for pursuing this path and increasing local recycling, while Essex County Council are busy trying to build giant waste treatment plants.
Re contamination: it would be useful to know why certain materials are/are not recyclable, so that we can treat similar materials the same way. For example, I put used post-its in the non-recyclable bin, on the understanding that that’s where envelopes go – because of the glue.