Mixed Material Collections
Haringey Council is in the process of expanding mixed-material collections across the borough. The Mixed Recycling Service will soon be provided to all residents with green boxes, whilst new services are in the process of being introduced for housing estates and blocks of flats that use doorstep or ‘near-entry’ mixed material collections.
- What can be recycled?
- How is the recycling collected?
- Where is the recycling taken?
- How is the recycling sorted?
- Where does the recycling go after sorting?
What can be recycled?
Mixed-material recycling boxes and containers can be used to recycle:
- paper (but not drinks cartons)
- cardboard
- plastic bottles
- food tins and drink cans
- glass bottles and jars
All of these items are put into the same container, so there is no need to sort them out. We simply ask that residents rinse out all jars, cans and bottles first, and that lids are removed and disposed of in a refuse bin (as these cannot be recycled at the moment).
For more detailed information on what can be recycled, please refer to the relevant page for the service you receive:
- For green box collections, please see the mixed recycling service page
- For doorstep collections on estates, please see the blue bag collections page
- For recycling facilities at blocks of flats and on housing estates, please see the near-entry collections page
How is the recycling collected?
Mixed-material recycling is compacted in the vehicle when it is collected, which removes the air that is often trapped in items like plastic bottles and cardboard. This makes the recycling collections more efficient, as more boxes and containers can be emptied before the vehicle needs to be emptied.
On the Mixed Recycling Service, dual-compartment vehicles collect the mixed-material recycling in one side and organic recycling in another. On other mixed-material collections we use a single-compartment vehicle to collect all of the material. These vehicles look quite similar to the trucks used on refuse collections, but they are exclusively for recycling services.
Where is the recycling taken?
The mixed-material recycling is taken to bulking facilities in Edmonton or Islington, where it is added to similar materials that have been collected elsewhere in North London. Large containers of mixed-material recycling are then taken to a special sorting facility called a materials recovery facility, which is located in Greenwich and operated by Veolia Environmental Services.
|back to topHow is the recycling sorted?
The recycling passes through several different devices within the materials recovery facility (MRF), each of which is designed to pick out particular materials or items. Detailed information about this whole process can be found on the website for the London Borough of Greenwich, which developed the MRF in partnership with Cleanaway (now Veolia Environmental Services) – please see the external links section at the bottom of this page.
Where does the recycling go after sorting?
The sorted items are sent to different re-processing companies to be recycled into new products. The location of these companies varies, depending on the prices being offered for the different materials. Some will be in the UK, others will be in Europe, and some materials will be exported to parts of Asia.
When sorted recycling is sent abroad, a process called ‘backfilling’ is used. This involves the recycling being loaded onto container ships that have brought products from where they were manufactured in Asia to where they will be sold in Europe. These ships would normally sail back to Asia without any cargo, so by loading the sorted recycling onto them the recycling industry is able to make use of what would otherwise be wasted capacity. This also means that the recycling is supplied to the parts of the world where there is the most demand for raw materials to make new products.
|back to topUseful External Links
The following links are not part of the Haringey Council website. Please read our legal disclaimer before using these links
|
Update MePage Last Updated: 5 June 2008
This page belongs to the following categories :
- Environment > Rubbish, waste and recycling
- Environment > Rubbish, waste and recycling > Recycling facilities
- Environment > Rubbish, waste and recycling > Rubbish and waste
