What happens to recycling?
Blue bin, blue box and blue bag collections
The material you separate is collected on behalf of the District Council by Serco Limited and taken to their depot at Longcliffe here in the Derbyshire Dales. It is stored in bays and bulked into container wagons to be transported to the re-processor:
- The paper and cardboard is taken to UPM Shotton, Deeside.
- The mixed glass, cans and plastics is taken to Viridor, Crayford, Kent.
The materials are sorted into separate waste streams of particular grades and marketed individually either in the United Kingdom or European Union. The materials are used to produce newspaper print, fluting, carton board, bottles, piping, tins, fibre glass, various construction materials and aggregates.
Recycling sites
The mixed dry recyclables are collected by H W Martin Waste Ltd and taken to their Material Recycling Facility at Alfreton where the material is sorted and processed.
The mixed dry recyclables include:
- Steel Cans which are baled and smelted into new steel.
- Aluminium Cans which are baled and smelted into new aluminium.
- Glass which is screened, cleaned and sent out as glass cullet to processors for making new glass.
- Plastic mixed plastics are sent to a plastics plant in Leeds which sorts individual grades of polymers using infra-red detection equipment.
- Paper is also collected by HW Martin Ltd and is taken to their Material Recycling Facility in Alfreton where grading and quality checks are carried out. The material is then sent to paper mills to be made into newsprint.
