We collect thousands of tonnes of recycling every year and people often ask what happens to the material. As a signatory to the national End Destinations Register we are keen to advertise what happens to your recycling to show that it all gets recycled into useful items and mostly in the UK. So your recycling is helping to supply UK manufacturing and supporting jobs in industry. For example:
Paper goes to UPM Shotton near Chester where it is pulped and turned into newspapers.
Glass goes to Recresco in Ellesmere Port. It is crushed and melted down to make glass bottles.
Cans go to Alu-trade in the West Midlands. They are separated magnetically. Steel goes to AMG in South Wales. Aluminium goes to Novelis in Cheshire. Here they get shredded and melted down to make new cans, fridges, car parts, bicycles and even aeroplanes!
Plastics go to Jayplas in Leicester and Closed Loop Recycling Ltd. in London. They get separated into different types which can be used to make fleeces, water butts, drainage pipes and more plastic packaging.
Garden waste goes to local farms in Shropshire. It is shredded, composted and spread on the land as a soil improver.
Garden waste (with food included) goes to Vital Earth Composting in Derbyshire. It is composted in special enclosed steel containers to make high quality compost which is bagged for sale in local garden centres.
Textiles go to BCR Global Textiles Ltd. in the West Midlands. Wearable items get sold on in charity shops or in developing countries. Items not fit for re-use are shredded to make cushion stuffing.
Wood goes to A&A Recycling Ltd in the West Midlands. It is sorted by grade. Good quality wood can be recycled via Kronospan in Chirk to make chipboard. Lower grade material is used to create green energy.
Cardboard goes to Oswestry Waste Paper in Shropshire. It is baled and sold on to various reprocessors including Smurfitt-Kappa paper mill in Birmingham who make cardboard packaging.
Tyres go to DME in Staffordshire. They can be shredded down and used to make childrens playground surfaces. Some are also used as a fuel in the cement making industry helping to reduce fossil fuel use.
Batteries go to G&P Batteries Ltd in the West Midlands. Once sorted they are sent to metal smelting facilities in the UK and France.
Fridges go to Aquaforce in the West Midlands. They have to be treated carefully to remove the CFC's and then the metal and foam can be recycled.
TV's go to Recycling Lives in Preston. They are carefully dismantled to avoid hazardous material and stripped for components. All parts of the TV can be recycled including the glass screen.
Car Batteries go to Oakley Arnold in Shropshire. They first remove and neutralise the battery acid, to allow the valuable lead to be extracted for recycling.
The attached leaflet summarises our latest End Destinations Audit. NB - our outlets do change from time to time but we endevour to make sure information is as accurate as possible at all times.