Your recycling collections are made by a member of the recycling crew walking up your street with a recycling wheelie bin, and emptying each green box into it.
Each time the wheelie bin becomes full it is emptied into the back of the recycling vehicle. When the round is complete the recycling vehicle is driven to Hinkcroft transport in New Cross to be bulked up.
It is then transported on to the Materials Recycling Facility (external website) in Thamesmead. Here the different materials travel down a series of conveyer belts and are sorted out using various pieces of equipment including a trommel.
A trommel is like a huge washing machine. It acts as a sieve, has magnets to separate the steel, and special ‘eddy current’ magnets to separate the aluminium.
There is a final manual sort at the end to ensure nothing has slipped through, before the different materials are baled separately, to be sold and transported to reprocessing facilities.
Below is a list of things that can be made from recycled materials.
Paper
Cardboard gets remade as corrugated cardboard. Newspapers and leaflets are made into new newsprint. Other mixed paper is recycled to make new paper.
Cans
From the ferrous and non-ferrous metals, many things can be produced, including new cans, car parts, aeroplane parts and ship parts.
Glass
The glass is crushed for road building in the South London area. It can also be used to make new glass.
Plastic
The plastic bottles we collect from are made into more plastic bottles. But recycled plastic can also be used to make garden furniture, fleece jackets, new wheelie bins, composters and video and CD cases, among other things.
First stage: transporting your recycling.