Last updated at 08:48, Wednesday, 21 May 2008

After your recycle bins or kerbside boxes have been collected, their contents arrive at the depot where they are baled up and sent off to different sites around the country to be turned into something new. This is what happens to it . . .

PAPER: More than 80 per cent of the paper used to print British newspapers is now recycled.

Old paper from Cumbria is taken to two recycling companies, UPM, based in Shotton in north-east Wales, and Abitibi in Ellesmere Port.

At both centres the paper is washed to remove ink, glue and plastic film and then mixed with water to produce a mushy, papier mache-like substance.

Other ingredients may also be added, depending on whether it is being turned in to newsprint or office paper. The mush is then spread out and dried and the dry material is rolled into huge rolls around 12 feet in diameter, ready to be cut according to the size customers want.

Recycling paper has a huge environmental benefit. Not only does it remove the need to chop down trees, but it also produces only a quarter of the pollution that making paper from new wood does.

GLASS: Some old glass is ground down and made into aggregate called “glassphalt” used for surfacing roads. Stretches of the the M6 were repaired using glassphalt in 2003 – so motorists using it may have been driving over glass without realising it.

However the vast majority of Cumbria’s glass is made into new jars and bottles. It is taken to Alloa in Scotland, where a firm called O-I Manufacturers recycle it.

The old glass is first carried along a conveyor belt where high-tech equipment is used to remove contaminants such as paper, ceramics, plastic or metal, and the glass is cleaned.

It is then crushed and melted in a huge furnace – once the second largest furnace in the world – and the liquid glass is poured out into a mould in the shape of the new jar or bottle.

Glass can be recycled infinitely, without ever losing its quality – so the possibilities for it are endless.

CANS: Drinks cans are generally made of aluminium, while food cans are usually steel – and both can be recycled.

Cumbria’s cans are taken to AMG Resources, a company based in Hartlepool, whose first task is to squash them.

Mechanical hammers flatten and shred the metal into pieces roughly the size of 50p coins, which are then passed under magnets to separate steel from aluminium. Steel is magnetic while aluminium is not.

The metals are blasted with hot air of 500 degrees Celsius to remove decorations and ink, and then melted in furnaces.

When removed they solidify into huge Toblerone-shaped ingots. One ingot could contain as many as 1.5 million cans.

Much of the recycled metal is reused for packaging food or drinks – and recycled cans can be back on sale within six weeks – but they are also put to other uses. Many cars and even ships’ hulls are now made from recycled metals.

PLASTIC: comes in a huge variety of forms, but those most commonly recycled are high density polyethylene and polyethylene terephthalate – known for convenience as HDPE and PET.

HDPE is used for the likes of shampoo bottles and milk cartons while PET is more commonly used for drinks bottles. The two materials amount to about 40 per cent each of the plastic we recycle, with the remaining 20 per cent various other, usually lower grade plastics.

Much of our plastic goes to Acorn Recyclers in Loughborough.

After being separated into its differing varieties, the plastics are put through a granulator, which as the name suggests turns them into granules, and then another machine called an aggromulator which heats them and turns them into plastic pellets.

These go to manufacturers to make new plastic bottles, but they can also be used for making pipes or water containers – or even fleece jackets. One adult fleece could be made from 25 two-litre drinks bottles.

However some UK plastic waste is still exported – despite the controversy surrounding it.

Two years ago there were reports of terrible pollution being caused in China by western plastic waste. It appeared that we were only improving our environment by causing environmental damage elsewhere in the world.

However Mr Davidson said that since then the export of plastic has been much more strictly monitored.

“The rules are a lot tighter now, which is a good thing,” he said.

“Demand in the UK for plastic has really picked up in the last 12 months.

“More and more facilities for recycling it have opened up in this country.”

GARDEN WASTE: The branches, grass clippings. leaves and other green waste collected from our kerbsides go to AW Jenkinson Wood Waste, based in Rockcliffe, who turn it into compost and mulch, a substance used in landscaping.

The waste is first sorted into larger items, such as branches, which need to be shredded, and smaller waste such as leaves and grass which can go straight into the mix.

It is stacked in piles weighing around 500 tonnes called windrows, which each have to contain an exact balance of moisture, nitrogen (from grass) and carbon (from wood). These windrows are regularly turned to allow air through them.

The pile will have reduced in size to around 400 tonnes after eight to 10 weeks. Half of it is then taken for compost, 100 tonnes are taken for mulch and the remaining 100 tonnes go back into the mix.

David Hodgson, production manager with AW Jenkinson, said the compost produced was of very high quality, meeting standards set jointly by the Government and the Compost Association.

So what isn't recycled? Rubbish that is not recycled has traditionally been buried in holes in the ground.

But space in these landfill sites is running out fast, and creating new landfill sites is not an option, as most people, understandably, refuse to have one near their homes.

The sites attract vermin and produce methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas, around 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

A highly toxic liquid from landfill sites, called leachate, can also seep into water courses, destroying wildlife and endangering human health.

The only way to avoid these landfill dangers is to reduce the amount of waste we produce – and recycle as much of it as possible.

First published at 11:35, Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk