Recycling – Where Does it all Go?

Stephen Webb

September 2002

So you've spent Sunday morning stamping on cans, folding papers and squeezing it all into a recycling box, ready to be collected from your doorstep. That is, if you are lucky enough to have a kerbside scheme – around 50% of householders don't at the moment. If you are not one of the lucky ones then you will have had to cycle or drive to the local supermarket to visit the glass and paper banks, whilst getting the weekly shop. But have you have ever wondered what happens to the materials once they're out of your hands?

Collections

Materials collected from those igloo and skip-type bring banks tend to follow a straightforward procedure. The large quantity of material means that the banks can be emptied directly onto lorries, which can then take it straight to the reprocessing plant. although paper and glass banks, which are the most common, often go through intermediate sorting plants.

Quality control cannot be guaranteed because it's not possible to monitor what goes into the banks. Most banks will specify the type of paper required. But they are, of course, open to being used as dustbins for every type of paper conceivable – even solid wood! This causes a problem as loads can sometimes be rejected at the reprocessing plants if an inspector deems that there is too much contamination. In these cases, the whole lorry load will be rejected.

The mixed material collection schemes, including kerbside schemes, require a little more thought. The advantage of these schemes is that the recyclable materials have already been separated out from everyday household rubbish by the householder, and hence are of a cleaner standard. Sometimes the collected materials are separated from each other on the collection van itself, taking the process one stage further and helping to reduce contamination.

The van will then go to a materials recycling facility – a sorting warehouse. Here our rubbish takes a last journey on a large conveyor belt where it is sorted into material types by a combination of mechanical and manual methods. Contaminants are removed at this stage. Steel and aluminium cans are removed with magnets or electronic processes, while materials like plastics are usually hand-sorted.

Once the materials have been separated and sorted into their own groups, they can be compressed and baled. Now they are ready to go on to the reprocessing plants dotted around the country.

So what happens to the most commonly recycled household materials?

Aluminium cans and foil

There is a 95% energy saving in recycling versus virgin production of aluminium. 41% of all cans are recycled in the UK and 11% of foil.

Aluminium has a distinct advantage over every other common recyclable household material in that its market value as a commodity is far and away the highest. This obviously has instant implications for the collection process. There are over 600 'cash-for-cans' sites around the country, yet despite this it's estimated that 3 billion drink cans worth £22.5 million were lost to landfill in 2000.

The ALCAN group runs a reprocessing plant in Warrington, the first of its kind in Europe. This plant can potentially process all the aluminium drink cans used in the UK. The plant will melt down the collected cans to form huge aluminium ingots, each weighing 26 tonnes – enough to make 1.6 million drink cans. The ingots are shipped to drinks manufacturers to be reformed into aluminium drink cans. The advantage of aluminium is that there is very little degradation of the material as it's recycled, so it can be recycled almost indefinitely.

Aluminium foil is made up differently to the aluminium in cans and it follows a different route. Aluminium foil will go to secondary metals processors, where they will be cast into various products including car parts such as cylinder heads. The container for that Indian takeaway you ate last year could now be helping to power to your car!

Glass

There is a 33% energy saving on recycled verses virgin production of glass. About 25% of all glass and up to 90% of green glass is recycled. Every tonne of glass recycled saves 1.2 tonnes of raw materials.

Collected glass is sent to one of 21 recyclers or reprocessors around the country. Until recently, one of the main products of recycled bottles and jars was more bottles and jars. Continental shopping trippers however bring back large quantities of beer and wine, both of which tend to be encased in green glass. This, along with the increasing popularity of bottled wine generally in Britain, led to a large influx of green turning up in the bottle banks.

But most of the UK's manufactured glass exports tend to be in spirits bottles that are normally made of clear glass. So green glass had nowhere to go and there was a temporary drop in the value of green glass – a problem that sent the recycling boffins scuttling off to find a new way to make green glass attractive again. This they have achieved through new and innovative products.

Whereas two or three years ago your glass would have turned into another glass bottle, these days the end products are more varied. It could be glass gravel as a decoration for your garden, as an abrasive in sand-blasting applications, as pavement slabs to replace those dull concrete blocks (they match concrete in strength and resilience), as an aggregate in road construction, or even as a filtrate for water purification.

These developments have been successful enough to raise the value of green glass to a point where it is now comparable with the other colours.

Paper

40% of total UK paper consumption is recycled. There can be a saving of 28-70% of energy compared to using virgin materials.

Like glass, paper banks have become a common sight on streets and in supermarket car parks, and the UK does have a relatively respectable record in this. Currently, the newspaper you read in the mornings will contain up to 60% recycled paper. However, paper has the disadvantage that it cannot be recycled indefinitely, so paper products will always need some virgin material added to them to replace damaged fibres of the recycled paper.

There have also been some hiccups with the paper value. At one point approximately 6 years ago there was a price boom, and organisations got accustomed to being paid for having their paper picked up. Unfortunately that reversed, paper prices have dropped to the point where collectors are having to charge for the paper they collect.

Collected paper will end up at one of 87 mills nationwide, where the collected material is pulped, de-inked where necessary, and the resulting fibres reformed into paper once again. Recycled paper is also used for pet bedding (which can be composted once used), house insulation, pens and pencils, cat litter and compost bins.

Plastics

3-4% of all plastic bottles sold are recycled. Recycling one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60 watt light bulb for 6 hours. There is an 80% energy saving compared to virgin production.

Plastics are difficult materials to find recycling facilities for. Plastics reprocessors prefer the material coming in to be contaminant free and of one, so-called, polymer type. There are 5 or 6 common polymer types in use in the home. This means that plastics have to be separated out from each other before most reprocessors will accept them.

Plastics are under-used materials when it comes to recycling, and yet the variety of products is enormous. Probably one the best known is the use of plastic bottles to make fibres. These fibres are used, amongst other things, to make fleeces and thermal underwear! They may also fill sleeping bags, pillows and jacket linings. Other products include car bumpers, dustbin liners, litter bins, scissor handles, cycle stands, café furniture – the list goes on.

Expanded polystyrene is being used by a number of companies to make garden furniture and fencing. The polystyrene is compressed to make a mock timber effect board that can be machined in a similar way to timber.

Steel

Up to 25% of all steel cans are made from recycled steel. There is a 75% energy saving compared to virgin production.

The majority of food and pet food cans are made from steel, with a very thin coating of tin. The recycling infrastructure for these are quite extensive. They are run by Corus Steel through the 'Save a Can' scheme. Over 13 billion steel cans are used in the UK every year, and despite the fact that they are easy to separate out because they are magnetic, over 610,000 tonnes of steel drink tins, food tins, biscuit tins and aerosols are still being land-filled.

Steel cans are collected in three ways. Through the bring banks, kerbside schemes, and through magnetic extraction from unrecycled refuse. The extraction can occur in general sorting plants, composting plants and after incineration. Once collected, the tins are sent to one of two reprocessing groups, Corus or AMG Resources, where the layer of tin is removed and both materials enter the recycling chain. Steel from cans could return into circulation as virtually any steel product, from paper clips to pushbikes, or back to cans again.

Textiles

There is a 25% energy saving to virgin production. Buying one reclaimed woollen garment per person per year would save an average 371 million gallons of water and 480 tonnes of chemical dyestuffs.

The majority of textiles are collected through clothing collection banks run by groups such Oxfam, Salvation Army and Humana. Material collected is sorted into wearable and unwearable grades. The reusable clothing is often exported to developing countries whilst the non-reusable material will be sold on to various reprocessors. In some cases, the yarn or threads themselves are reused in the production of recycled fabrics or the material is shredded and used as a filler in such products as car door padding, speaker cones, felt and furniture padding.

Buying recycled

Clearly the market value of recycled materials plays a large part in the success of recycling, and whilst producing innovative new products is very appealing, this is not the end of the story. Regardless of the finished product, the recycling loop has not been completed until that product has been sold and is in use. And there is still work to be done to overcome the myth that recycled products are inferior to virgin products. This myth remains a barrier to achieving higher recycling rates in this country.

Find out more

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Websites

Recycle More
www.recycle-more.co.uk
Advice on recycling at home, at school and in the workplace

Freecycle
www.freecycle.org/display.php?
region=United%20Kingdom
A worldwide movement with websites in most cities and areas of the UK aimed at enabling people to offer any unwanted goods to other Freecyclers in order to prevent items going to landfill. It's free for users.

Waste Watch
www.wastewatch.org.uk
Waste Watch is a national charity promoting awareness on waste reduction, reuse and recycling. Wasteline: 0870 243 0136

Buying Recycled Products
www.recycledproducts.org.uk
Guide to buying recycled products in the UK.

The Environment Council – Waste Guide
www.wasteguide.org.uk
Information on specific waste types and how waste is controlled by legislation and regulation. With case studies of good practice and a contacts directory.

Let's Recycle
www.letsrecycle.com
Independent website with news and information for recyclers and all those involved in sustainable waste management in the UK.

Public Awareness Campaign
www.rethinkrubbish.org
This site gives the low-down on the growing problem of household rubbish in the UK and some quick and easy solutions.

Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP)
www.wrap.org.uk
WRAP's role is to create stable and efficient markets for recycled products and materials. They focus on plastic, paper, glass and wood.

The Composting Association
www.compost.org.uk
The Composting Association researches and promotes composting.

For information on recycling specific materials …

Aluminium
www.alupro.org.uk
www.cashforcans.co.uk

Steel Cans
www.scrib.org

Glass
www.britglass.co.uk

Plastics
www.bpf.co.uk
http://bir.org

Paper
www.ppic.org.uk
www.paper.org.uk

Textiles
www.e4s.org.uk/textilesonline/index.htm
http://bir.org

Electronics
www.icer.org.uk

Batteries
www.bbma.co.uk

Cars
www.smmt.co.uk/information/acord.asp

Wood
www.recycle-it.org

Books

Beyond Recycling: A re-user's guide by Kathy Stein (Clear Light Books, 1997) £12.50
How to save the planet and save money at the same time.

Rubbish and Recycling by Sally Morgan and Rosie Harlow (Kingfisher Books, 1995) £4.99
Activity-based book covering several types of waste.

Protecting Our Planet: Waste recycling and reuse by Steve Parker (Hodder Wayland, 2000) £5.99
Explains how much of a waste producing society we are, and suggests what we can do about it.

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