What happens to your recycling

New waste and recycling collection service
From November 2010 we will also be collecting food and garden waste for recycling.

The vast majority of our recycling collections in West Oxfordshire are served by kerbside-sort vehicles. Different recyclable materials are placed in different sections within the vehicle before being baled and sold on to be recycled. There are also standard refuse vehicles collecting recycling in some parts of the District - here, all the recyclable materials are put into the truck together (i.e. 'co-mingled'). These mixed materials are then taken to the Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) in the North of the district, where they are mechanically separated out before being baled and sold on to be recycled.

Glass - 70% of glass is separated out and sold to the UK glass industry and is recycled for bottle making and fibre glass manufacture. A small amount of this is also used in road aggregate. The glass collected from households in West Oxfordshire is taken to Berrymans Glass Recycling, in West Yorkshire. The remaining 30% goes into the European glass market, mainly to Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. Here it is used for making bottles that tend to be a darker green having been made from a variety of different colours of glass.

Cans - Our food and drinks cans are taken to AMG Resources Ltd, Carmarthenshire in Wales. Steel is recovered and sold globally whilst the recovered aluminium is sold within the UK and made into new drinks cans. The process of recycling used drinks can to make new drinks cans for the supermarket shelf can take as little as six weeks.

Garden waste - The green waste collected via our Bulky Household Waste collection is taken to the County-run civic amenity sites. From Dean Pit, the green waste is taken to be composted in Chipping Norton and used to fertilise the land of local farms. From Dix Pit the compost is used in the same way around Hinton Waldrist. The material collected through the wheelie bins scheme goes to the same composting sites.

Paper - The paper collected in West Oxfordshire is taken to Aylesford Newsprint, Kent, where it is made into newsprint. Higher grade office paper collected at the WODC offices is sold on to be made into tissue paper products.

Plastics - Roydon Polythene Exports Ltd in Lancashire process plastics collected in West Oxfordshire (a proportion of lower quality mixed plastics is reprocessed in Hong Kong). Mixed plastics are recycled to make a wide range of products including building materials like drain pipes and insulation as well as flower pots, watering cans and fleece material.

Cardboard - This is taken to Cutts Recycling in Doncaster who specialise in paper and cardboard recycling. The material is recovered, bulked and sold to paper and cardboard mills. Cardboard recycling involves soaking in water and agitating to release fibres, turning them back into pulp. Metal and ink contaminants are removed, additional finishing chemicals are added; the pulp is pressed into sheets and dried. Although the fibres get shorter each time they are pulped, cardboard can be recycled four or five times before fibres degrade and disintegrate. Second time around cardboard makes more boxes and packaging, but has an interesting range of other uses including stationery and animal bedding.

Textiles - Materials collected at the kerbside are taken to Devizes Textiles in Wiltshire where second hand clothes are sent to Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Other materials are baled and used to produce wiping cloths, or sold to recycling companies for use to produce insulation and other products.

Co-mingled - Some of the end-point destinations for this type of collection are different to the kerbside sort collections. These are:

Paper - United Paper Mill, Flintshire
Cardboard - Paper Nation, West Midlands
Plastics - Jayplas Ltd, Derby
Metals - Alutrade Ltd, Norfolk

Other materials from recycling banks

Drinks Cartons (TetraPaks) - These get sent to Sweden where they are recycled into the lining for plaster board.

Textiles & Shoes (from Salvation Army banks) - 96% are useable and these are sent for humanitarian needs, national emergencies and to the company's own shops.

Books (from Salvation Army banks) - These are sorted with valuable books put on Amazon and E-Bay. Some are sold to professional book people, with the rest sold to companies in the UK who recycle them back to paper.