Questions about recycling

Saturday 27th December 2008, 8:00AM GMT.

I am conscientiously recycling. In a year I spend hours tearing the windows out of envelopes, removing tape from cardboard, rinsing and squeezing flat plastic bottles and washing tin cans.

Now I read in my daily paper that much of this recycled material ends up in landfill sites. 

Can Telford & Wrekin and Shropshire authorities tell us what happens locally to the materials we think are being recycled? 

What materials and what percentages of these recycled materials end up in landfill or being incinerated? Are we wasting our time and the councils wasting our money?

John Davies

Much Wenlock


  1. 1
    Karen Jones

    I live very close to the tesco store in shrewsbury and its whole presents was based around the enviroment. I happen to walk past on Christmas day the only day it’s closed whole year and every single light in the store was on. How can this be enviromentally friendly. It makes you wonder in these times of tightening belts what other major stores left the electric burning and the meters running when they were closed?

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  2. 2
    Ken Adams

    Very good question; I understand the refuse is marked as recycled when it is collected, but some of it is then later dumped in landfill sites or sent to incinerators after being stored because there is no demand for it and councils cannot give it away. Nationally a conservative estimate is about 200,000 tons of recyclable household rubbish is being dumped.

    Unfortunately we have been saddled with a fundamentally flawed scheme, the inevitable consequences of which we are now seeing as the bottom has dropped out of the recycling market. There is only one way a recycling scheme is going to be successful in the long term and that is by creating markets for the salvaged material, sufficient to pull recyclable waste through the system, rather than push it into the market where there is no assured demand.

    But the costs to the tax payer are mounting because of the EU landfill tax which was devised by the British government as a means of forcing local authorities to recycle and thus to avoid the swingeing EU fines that will accrue if we do not cut landfill.

    At present this tax it standing at £32 per ton, which means that councils are potentially spending an extra £6.4million sending recycling to be dumped. Since landfill tax will rise to £40 per ton next year, the potential cost spirals to £8million.

    Thus, we are in a classic EU vice – if we do not recycle, we pay massive fines to the EU – But since we cannot recycle, because the bottom has dropped out of the market, we pay massive amounts for recyclable waste to be collected – then we pay silly amounts to have it stored and then, when the storage space runs out, we pay for the landfill tax when it has to be disposed. Then we also pay massive fines to the EU.

    Just one more cost of our membership of this anti democratic organisation.

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  3. 3
    Rodney Nosnail

    The answers to the questions at the end of the letters is “YES” and “YES”. We are wasting our time and they are definitely wasting our money, no matter what they state publicly. I have lived in many different countries where recycling is a way of life and it is, for the most part, done effectively, but the UK seems spectacularly oafish at trying to make it work. The hoops that the public have to jump through are there only to allow the local councils to meet their recycling targets, judged on how much is collected, not on where it eventually goes to, something that they can’t control as it’s subcontracted out to private companies. The whole of recycling system is a mess as it’s “organised” by local authorities, meaning that what is collected and how it is collected varies from area to area. (TWC, for example, are unable to collect plastic, whereas other areas can.) In addition, with market demand falling in general, the prices available for recycled materials means that the return doesn’t cover the investment, so be prepared for recycling companies to pull out of contracts or go bust or for councils to put up council tax or impose a special recycling tax in order to support recycling companies who have tendered too low for contracts, assuming that they could sell the material that they collected. The tragedy is that we cannot continue to put our waste into landfill at current levels, but whereas we, the concerned public, want to do our bit, the councils and government have yet to join up their individual ideas and create a common strategy. People now rely too much on (local) government to sort things out but time and again, (local) government has shown itself incompetent and unable to organise even the simplest of things. Do your own thing! Compost as much as you can; take off excess packaging in supermarkets and give it back to them (it’s your legal right – it’s their responsibility to dispose of it); buy less and waste less; eat all the food you buy; reuse whatever you can – newspapers for packaging, reuse envelopes instead of buying new ones, etc, etc. By all means, continue to put your recyclable materials in the box for collection, but until we get a joined-up national policy, don’t delude yourself that it’s not necessarily going to go into landfill as demand for it dries up. To our older readers, I would ask: do you remember the days when the “dustbin men” would come round and put your string-tied newspapers onto a rack on the lorry? Do you remember saving aluminium bottle tops and cake trays for the guide dogs? Remember using bones and meat scraps to make soup rather than throwing away? Remember buying goods from containers and putting them into brown bags? Remember the rag and bone man who recycled because doing it properly made him money? THAT was recycling and reusing! We should all try a little harder and rely less on (local) government to tell us how to do things. By doing so, we rely more on our own intuition rather than the theories espoused by ivory-tower ministers and local government graduates with lots of paper qualifications but no real-life common-sense. The other bad news? Well, with land-fill running out and exporting our waste no longer an option, the time will come when the only option to reuse and recycle will be incineration. With all the recent controversy seen recently in our local area, surely that in itself should be an encouragement to change our habits?

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  4. 4
    John Franklyn

    End destinations of waste in telford are as follows

    TWS RECYCLING END DESTINATION INFORMATION

    Cans/Aerosols

    First Destination
    Pink Skips

    Second Destination Oakley Arnold
    Separation of Materials takes place

    Third Destination:

    Aluminium Steel Waste

    Novelis via Transfer Station
    end destination
    Made into aluminium foil and sold to market
    European Metal Recycling Cartwright’s
    end destination
    Waste Transfer Station & Landfill

    Fourth Destination

    Corus Port Talbot
    end destination
    Sold to market

    Car Batteries

    First Destination
    Taurus Metals
    end destination
    Melted down and sold to markets

    Card

    First Destination
    Pink Skips

    Second Destination
    Parry and Evans
    end destination
    Sold to Far East for recycling back into packaging material

    CRT’s

    First Destination
    The Mann Organisation

    Second Destination

    Ferrous Metals Non Ferrous Metals Plastics Glass Waste
    Processing facility Processing facility Processing facility Glass treatment facility Landfill
    End destination End destination End destination End destination End destination

    Florescent Tubes

    First Destination
    Balcan

    Second Destination

    Glass Mercury

    MID UK Recycling Quicksilver
    end destination
    end destination
    Made into road aggregate and wall insulation Distilled

    Engine Oil

    First Destination
    BOS Waste Oils Limited

    Second Destination
    Oil Salvage
    End destination
    Treated, reprocessed and made into alternate burning fuel for quarrying and steel industry.

    Fridges

    First Destination
    Aquaforce
    End destination
    Materials broken down, shredded and sold to market

    Glass

    First Destination
    Pink Skips

    Second Destination
    Recresco
    End destination
    Recycled back into glass, or made into road aggregate

    Green

    First Destination
    Simpro
    end destination
    Local On farm composting

    Household Batteries

    First Destination
    G & P Batteries

    Second Destination

    Alkaline Ni-Cad Nicle Metal Hydride Lithium Ion Primary Lithium

    H J Enthoven & Sons Snam Snam H J Enthoven & Sons Citron SA
    end destination end destination end destination end destination end destination

    Paper

    First Destination
    Pink Skips

    Second Destination
    Parry & Evans

    Third Destination
    UPM Kymmene, Deeside
    End destination
    Paper Mill

    Plastic

    First Destination
    Pink Skips

    Second Destination
    J & A Young (Leicester) Ltd
    End destination
    Shredded and sold to market

    Scrap

    First Destination
    Rollasons
    End destination
    Sold to foundries as a raw material

    Tetra

    First Destination
    Orbero Mill, Sweden
    End destination
    Recycling Mill

    Textiles

    First Destination
    Textiles Good Condition European Textiles Shoes Good Condition
    End destination
    Eastern Europe for Reuse Made into rag wipes and sold to engineering companies Africa for Reuse

    Tyres

    First Destination
    DME
    End destination
    Chipped and sold to UK companies for variety of uses including play mats on playgrounds

    WEEE

    First Destination
    LDA SDA

    Oakley Arnold Overtons
    End destination Plastic Metals
    Sold to market End destination
    Exported Second Destination
    Metal and Waste Recycling Limited ER Coley (Steel)
    End destination End destination

    Wood

    First Destination
    Pink Skips

    Second Destination Second Destination
    A & A Recycling Alan’s Skip Hire

    Third Destination Third Destination
    Kronospan Kronospan
    End destination End destination
    Chipped and sold to market Chipped and sold to market

    SITA RECYCLING END DESTINATION INFORMATION

    Cans/Aerosols

    First Destination Oakley Arnold
    Separation of Materials takes place

    Second Destination:

    Aluminium Steel Waste

    Novelis via Transfer Station
    end destination
    Made into aluminium foil and sold to market
    European Metal Recycling Cartwright’s
    end destination
    Waste Transfer Station

    Third Destination

    Corus Port Talbot
    end destination
    Sold to market

    Car Batteries

    First Destination
    G & P Batteries

    Second Destination
    H J Enthoven & Sons
    end destination

    Reclaimed lead sold to industry, Polypropylene – in house recycling, Acid – in house recycling

    Card

    First Destination
    Pink Skips

    Second Destination
    Parry and Evans
    end destination
    Sold to Far East for recycling back into packaging material

    CRT’s

    First Destination
    The Mann Organisation

    Second Destination

    Ferrous Metals Non Ferrous Metals Plastics Glass Waste
    Processing facility Processing facility Processing facility Glass treatment facility Landfill
    End destination End destination End destination End destination End destination

    Florescent Tubes

    First Destination
    Lampcare
    End destination
    Raw materials recycled, mercury distilled

    Engine Oil

    First Destination
    Oil Salvage
    End destination
    Treated, reprocessed and made into alternate burning fuel for quarrying and steel industry.

    Fridges

    First Destination
    Aquaforce
    End destination
    Materials broken down, shredded and sold to market

    Glass

    First Destination
    Recresco
    End destination
    Recycled back into glass, or made into road aggregate

    Green

    First Destination
    DM Lea
    end destination
    Local on farm composted

    Household Batteries

    First Destination
    G & P Batteries

    Second Destination

    Alkaline Ni-Cad Nicle Metal Hydride Lithium Ion Primary Lithium

    H J Enthoven & Sons Snam Snam H J Enthoven & Sons Citron SA
    end destination end destination end destination end destination end destination

    Paper

    First Destination
    UPM Kymmene, Deeside
    End destination
    Paper Mill

    Plastic

    First Destination
    Pink Skips

    Second Destination
    J & A Young (Leicester) Ltd
    End destination
    Shredded and sold to market

    Scrap

    First Destination
    Oakley Arnold
    End destination
    Sold to foundries as a raw material

    Tetra

    First Destination
    Orbero Mill, Sweden
    End destination
    Recycling Mill

    Textiles

    First Destination
    Textiles Good Condition European Textiles Shoes Good Condition
    End destination
    Eastern Europe for Reuse Made into rag wipes and sold to engineering companies Africa for Reuse

    Tyres

    First Destination
    DME
    End destination
    Chipped and sold to UK companies

    WEEE

    First Destination
    LDA SDA

    Oakley Arnold Overtons
    End destination Plastic Metals
    Sold to market End destination
    Exported as a material Second Destination
    Metal and Waste Recycling Limited ER Coley (Steel)
    End destination End destination

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  5. 5
    graymallkin

    I have definitly given up recycling paper. There is little point if my bin is half empty.

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  6. 6
    devon salopian

    the situation is about 9 months ago our recycled item were worth quite a lot of money per ton and most of it was eagerly snapped up by the chinese manufacturing industry. unfortunately credit crunch has put paid to their manufacturing and the price per ton has collapsed, and paper, glass and tin is being stockpiled. perhaps in a year or 2 we may be exporting again, so keep on recycling

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  7. 7
    Rodney Nosnail

    John Franklyn has given a comprehensive list of where TWC waste heads for. Notice how much metal is sold as “scrap” on the market. A market that no longer needs it. Notice how much card is exported to Far East? A market that no longer needs it? Notice how much plastic is shredded and sold to market? A market that no longer needs it? See how glass is remade into glass or road aggregate? For a glass packaging industry currently in decline and all economies no longer building (or repairing) roads. See how Tetra product is sent back to Sweden? It’s cannot be recycled without energy-intensive input to separate the plastic, metal and card layers, which is why Tetra packaging is highly taxed as environmentally unfriendly in many countries outside the EU. See how much paper goes back to just a couple of paper mills? The bottom has fallen out of the recycled fibre market. In a booming economy, recycled waste does indeed fulfil an important function, but as I implied in my comment above, we can be sure that as economies start to enter into recession, markets start to lose customers and recycled waste starts to build up for want of customers, then the companies treating it will have no option but to either ask for subsidies from their clients, (local governments) or send it to landfill, (because if they cannot sell it, it’s a cheaper option for them and their clients, even at the £40 per tonne quoted in Ken’s comment above). Look how many times the word “landfill” appears in that recycling summary. Look how many times “market” appears. It’s not really that transparent, is it? I bet most recycling officers in UK wouldn’t be able to give you more than 5 examples of where any particular recycled waste REALLY ends up as a specific product. The industry as it stands is uncoordinated and in need of harmonisation so that we’re all pulling together and working to a strategic end-point, not just trying to tick target boxes to avoid (yes, EU) fines. First step: look after your own waste and packaging and don’t be naive enough to believe that as commercial reality bites, recycling contractors, (most of whom are merely first stage collectors – or “skip companies” – rather than recyclers anyway), will be able to find outlets for our waste. It’s a target ticking exercise and we’re all being shamefully conned.

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  8. 8
    askeric dotcom

    Well said Rodney !!

    Quote:

    “To our older readers, I would ask: do you remember the days when the “dustbin men” would come round and put your string-tied newspapers onto a rack on the lorry? Do you remember saving aluminium bottle tops and cake trays for the guide dogs? Remember using bones and meat scraps to make soup rather than throwing away? Remember buying goods from containers and putting them into brown bags? Remember the rag and bone man who recycled because doing it properly made him money? THAT was recycling and reusing”

    AND .. HOW MANY times have I said on these these columns …

    In the ’50′s and early sixties, we had DUSTBINS, called that becuase all that ever went into them was DUST.

    What we didn’t ever put in was:

    No food waste
    (YES Sundays roast became Monday’s Shepherds pie, and Tuesdays Soup. HOW many people remember the hand grinder for grinding up meat? No – you didn’t buy “mince” then – you made your own from Sundays left overs!

    No food Packaging waste –
    Mum never got any packaging to worry about,…
    spuds, carrots, peas, cauliflower, onions, sprouts etc ALL went straight from the greengrocers scales into mums Carrier bag,
    Meat was delivered to our door, along with bread, with virtually no packaging.

    No paper –
    we used that to re-wrap things, light the fire, wrap fish n’ chips in , and the rest was string tied and put on the back of the lorry (as Rodney says)
    (OH yes .. I remember the Stack of papers in the hallway tied with old string ready for the “paper man” next week)

    NO cardboard –
    only cardboard we had was cardboard boxes the grocer used to deliver groceries every Thursday – and he always collected the old boxes from last week for re-use.

    And at the back of the garden was a compost heap for providiing nutrients for the garden, as, even with a fairly small garden, we did grow a lot of our own vegetables. We had several apple trees in the garden, along with a pear tree, and a Cherry tree. So apple /cherry pie was often on the menu.

    And YES – the old “Rag an Bone” man who regularly toured the streets every week in a Horse drawn cart – who ALWAYS had plenty of old junk stacked on the back – and he seemed to do very well on it.

    So there you are, a snapshot from 50 years ago when we recycled far more than is done today ..

    Nothing new under the Sun !

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  9. 9
    Soldierf

    Recycling is nonsense, its always been a con trick making us into unpaid collectors of waste for someone to make money.

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  10. 10
    tory boy

    hear hear i applaud this, because recycling was a labour idea, a stealth tax from europe, damn the environment this is a communist thing, all sharing the stuff, landfill is not so bad, we need to recycle less and burn the stuff instead for power, recycling is just job creation for labour, and control for them, they love rules in their planned economy world, when we get cameron in, we can get rid of the recycling collections and bring back weekly rubbish collection instead, hahaha, yes, i love it, give me more, anti labour sentiment in your letters page, ha ha

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  11. 11
    Michael Ryan

    Are any Shropshire Star readers aware of health fears about emissions from Kronospan?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/1863965.stm

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  12. 12
    John Franklyn

    Well said Rodney, some very valid points are raised there.

    Tory Boy once again seems to be going off at one of his tangents. If legislation like the producer respomsibilty regs were actually made to work, recycling would be alot better and at the admittance of SITA, there would be no need for incineration.

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  13. 13
    Huw Peach

    There are some very interesting and thought-provoking comments and suggestions above, although I think that the imperative of getting resources moving around in a cycle through our economic system needs to be emphasised more.

    Could John Franklyn say a little more about producer responsibility regs?

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  14. 14
    Huw Peach

    The message from the easy-to-use and practical website, Recycle Now, which I thoroughly recommend, is to keep recycling.

    It’s also important that we realise that we have a role as consumers in creating markets for recycled products.

    To create that cycle of resources I spoke about earlier, we need to buy recycled products whenever we can.

    Natural Collection, the catalogue company, which won Online Retailer of the Year for an unprecedented third time in The Observer Ethical Awards 2008, sell recycled products, such as Recycled Aluminium Foil, for example.

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  15. 15
    Huw Peach

    Ken Adams says (#2) ‘we cannot recycle, because the bottom has dropped out of the market’.

    Unfortunately for Mr Adams, this does not correspond with what Oswestry Waste Paper are saying.

    See http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/12/30/uk-waste-policy-is-tax-scam/ for details.

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