Your kerbside recycling box is emptied into a 7.5-tonne recyling lorry. The materials are sorted in to different metal cages as the box is emptied (it helps the collection crews if your materials are already separated in your box as much as possible). The Mid Devon district is served by nine lorries, which work five days per week. At the end of each day's collection round the lorries return to the recycling depot at Silverton Mill, Near Exeter and empty the materials into separate piles, ready to be sent away for recycling.
To get the maximum environmental benefit from recycling, we try to get our waste recycled in the UK. However, we sometimes have to send materials abroad for reprocessing. A study the the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) in 2008 compared the environmental impact of shipping paper and plastic to China with the energy saving and carbon dioxide reduction that results from recycling these materials. The study concluded that, in carbon dioxide emissions, the benefits of recycling outweighed the impact of transport to China by a factor of three to one. The benefits of recycling become even more marked when taking into account that many ships bringing goods from China to the UK would otherwise return empty. To read the full report, click here:
Most recyclable material has a financial value, and selling this material helps to reduce the cost of your waste collection service. Click here for a guide to current market prices . Please note that these are national averages and may differ to prices currently received by Mid Devon
Glass
Glass jars and bottles are made from a mixture of silica sand, soda ash, and limestone and can be recycled over and over indefinitely. Glass's properties make it an extremely safe container for preserving food and protecting flavour.
Recycled glass is:
- Recycled by you.
- Collected, stockpiled and then transported to processing plants in Europe. Optical machines sort the glass by colour.
- The glass is broken into small pieces, called cullet, and run through machines to remove any metals, labels, plastics or other contaminants.
- The cullet is then combined with new silica sand, soda ash, and limestone and heated until it melts.
- Additives are used to change the colour of the molten glass which is blown into new bottles and jars.
· 1 recycled glass bottle would save enough energy to power a computer for 25 minutes.
· Each UK family uses an average of 500 glass bottles and jars annually.
· The largest glass furnace produces over 1 million glass bottles and jars per day.
· Glass is 100% recyclable and can be used again and again.
· Glass that is thrown away and ends up in landfills will never decompose.
Steel
Steel is a widely used metal. Steel cans are 99 percent steel with a thin coating of tin, though they are often called "tin cans." Steel is made from iron ore, and is 100% recyclable. In fact, all steel products are made with recycled metal, making it the most recycled material in the world!
By recycling, the steel industry saves a lot of energy - enough to power 18 million households for a whole year!
Metals can be recycled indefinitely without ever losing their properties!
Recycled steel is:
- Recycled by you.
- Collected and stockpiled, it is separated from other recyclables with large magnets, then compressed into large rectangle blocks called bales to be shipped to a processing plant.
- At the processing plant the metal is combined with other scrap and virgin steel and heated at very high temperatures until melted.
- Various cooling systems are used to harden the steel in to the new steel products.
Products such as cans, the outsides of many appliances, and car fenders are made with about 30% recycled steel in a basic oxygen furnace.
Other steel products such as steel beams and reinforcement bars used to support cement are made in an electric arc furnace With around 95-100% recycled steel.
1 recycled tin can would save enough energy to power a television for 3 hours.
Aluminium
Aluminium is a lightweight, silver coloured metal made from a clay-like ore called bauxite. Aluminium is not magnetic, does not rust and is 100% recyclable.
Recycled Aluminium Is:
- Recycled by you.
- Collected and stockpiled at the recycling depot and squashed into large rectangles called bales to be shipped to a processing plant.
- The cans are shredded and then heated at very high temperatures until melted.
- The melted aluminium is poured into blocks or rods and cooled. These are called ingots.
- The ingots are heated and rolled into flat sheets which are shaped into cans at the manufacturing plant.
- The cans are sent to beverage companies where they are filled and sealed then sent to a store, ready to be bought again and recycled starting the process over again. This can all happen in just 60 days!
· 24 million tonnes of aluminium is produced annually, 51,000 tonnes of which ends up as packaging in the UK.
· If all cans in the UK were recycled, we would need 14 million fewer dustbins.
· £36,000,000 worth of aluminium is thrown away each year.
· Aluminium cans can be recycled and ready to use in just 6 weeks
Paper
Paper is made from plant fibres and cellulose.
Paper is the number one material that we throw away, even though almost all of it can be recycled!
Recycled paper is:
- Recycled by you.
- Collected and stockpiled at the recycling depot and then squashed into large cubes, called bales, and shipped to a processing plant.
- The paper is chopped up to separate the fibres from each other.
- The fibres are put through several mechanical and chemical treatments to wash out the inks and other contaminants. This soupy mixture is called slurry and is about 97% water.
- This process damages and shortens the fibers of the paper, thus paper can only be recycled around 3 – 6 times.
- How the paper is sorted for processing, (office paper, newspaper, magazines, mixed paper) determines the products the paper will become.
Paper has a long fibre length and can be used for a wide range of paper-based products - making it more economical to recycle. The fibre length of card is shorter, which limits what it can be turned back into, this is one of the reasons why we collect card for composting.
· 70% less energy is required to recycle paper compared with making it from raw materials
· Recycled paper produces 73% less air pollution than if it was made from raw materials.
· 12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard are used annually in the UK.
· The average person in the UK gets through 38kg of newspapers per year.
· It takes 24 trees to make 1 ton of newspaper
Recycled paper made up 87.2% of the raw material for UK newspapers in 2008 (source: Newsprint and Newspaper Industry Environmental Action Group)
Plastic Milk Bottles & Carrier Bags
Plastic is made from petroleum, natural gas, and coal. The technology for recycling plastics is relatively new and still in development.
Recycled plastic is:
- Recycled by you.
- Collected and stockpiled at the recycling depot.
- The plastics are then compacted into large cubes called bales and transported to a processing plant.
- The different plastics are washed and shredded into flakes or fragmented into pellets.
- Manufacturers re-melt the flakes or pellets and mould them into new plastic products such as shampoo bottles, flower pots, decking, or even clothing.
· 275,000 tonnes of plastic are used each year in the UK, that's about 15 million bottles per day.
· Most families throw away about 40kg of plastic per year, which could otherwise be recycled.
· The use of plastic in Western Europe is growing about 4% each year.
· Plastic can take up to 500 years to decompose
· 1 recycled plastic bottle would save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for 3 hours
Textiles
At the recycling plant the materials are separated into items that can be reused and items to be recycled.
Wearable items are sent off to developing countries to be reused. Cotton and silk make wiping cloths for industry, woollen fibres are reclaimed to make new yarns & fabrics, and shredded clothes are used as filling material for furniture and car seats.
Kitchen and Garden Waste
Your brown bin is emptied by dustcart and taken to Broadpath, a composting site near Uffculme. The same location as the landfill site in Mid Devon.
The dustcart tips inside the building and the organic material is taken on a conveyor belt into a big drum called a screen. The screen has holes in it, if the holes are big then the compost comes out at a lower grade, if the holes are smaller then the compost is a higher grade. The screen is set to a medium grade at the moment.
After screening the material is moved into a chamber, made of concrete, just like a long garage, it is heated up to a temperature of 60 degrees for 48 hours.
The process continues until the compost has passed through 4 chambers.
The heating process kills off any pathogens that come from the uncooked food and bones in accordance with the state veterinary service. This meets the strict regulations, governing the use of animal by-products, that were introduced after the UK foot and mouth outbreak in 2001.
The compost is then put outside in long rows called windrows. The compost is sold on to farmers as a soil conditioner. This improves the quality of the soil and reduces the need for chemical fertilisers.
