What happens to my recycling?

Kerbside collection

We collect your recycling from the kerbside and put it into the recycling vehicle. Once a recycling vehicle is full of materials from the green boxes, the load is dropped at a bulking depot in Ewelme. All the materials for recycling are packed into a larger vehicle before being taken away to be sorted.

Bulking materials

The materials are bulked up because it saves energy and pollution. The bulking process means fewer vehicles and fewer journeys to the next stage of the process, at the materials recovery facility, which is where the materials are separated and sorted.

The Materials Recovery Facility

The Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) can separate paper, cardboard, plastic, tins and cans by using a series of conveyors, a trommel (similar to a large rotating drum), magnets and eddy current. The MRF can sort around 50,000 tonnes of rubbish every year!

The materials are first unloaded and fed onto conveyor belts which travel up to the trommel, which is over 15 metres long. The trommel has different sized holes for the various materials to fall through. The cans and tins which fall through the holes and are taken by conveyor belt past a large magnet. The magnet and eddy current separate the steel cans from the aluminium cans.

Card, paper and plastics fall through different holes in the trommel and are carried by another conveyor belt to a picking station. At the picking station a team of hand sorters, pick out the plastics, which are then separated into their different type. They also pick out the paper and card.

After sorting

Once the materials have been separated and sorted they are packed and compressed into bales. The baled materials are then sold on to reprocessors to make new products. The table below shows some of the companies that Grundon supply recycled materials to for processing. These may vary depending on market value and availability.

Mixed Plastics

We take all types of domestic household plastics in the green recycling box. This includes items such as plastic bottles, plastic yoghurt pots and plastic meat trays. The higher grade plastic such as plastic bottles is recycled to make other products. The lower grade plastic, such as yoghurt pots and plastic bags are sorted and taken to an energy from waste plant in Slough to produce energy.

End Markets:

Item	Company	What happens
Aluminium cans	Novelis	Processed in UK to make new drinks cans
Steel food tins and drinks cans	Corus steel	Processed in UK to make new cans and other steel products such as bikes and domestic appliances
High Grade Plastics	Open market	Processed in both the UK and Asia to make new plastic products such as plaswood (a wood replacement) to make items such as decking, benches and sign posts
Paper and card	Open market	At present processsed mainly in Asia to make new products such as cardboard boxes, newsprint, tissue paper and writing paper

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