I work for a manufacturer who supplies materials to the civil engineering industry and one of the industries we get involved in is the waste industry. We have many contacts in the waste industry from the EA/SEPA, engineers, operators and contractors so we are reasonably well informed.

The market for recycled products is next to nothing. This means that the majority of the waste which is recycled, actually ends up in landfill. However as the municipal waste stream goes from householder to transfer station to recycling plant to landfill, your local authority actually claims this waste has been recycled, even though it ends up in landfill.

I know of one landfill site operated by a major waste operator where the recycling plant is situated on the landfill site and the end product actually comes out of the facility on a conveyor belt, dumping it onto a landfill.

Considering landfill tax is about £80/tonne, its no wonder why your local authority doesnt tip direct to landfill, instead of tipping at a recycling facility, thus selling the green option although motivated by avoiding the steep landfill tax.

The lack of market is not the council’s fault though is it?

I know of one landfill site operated by a major waste operator where the recycling plant is situated on the landfill site and the end product actually comes out of the facility on a conveyor belt, dumping it onto a landfill.

brighton? they have security guards who stop you taking photos – very strange.

The lack of market is not the council’s fault though is it?

Agreed

I’m calling bullshit on this at the start. And I work negotiating these contracts in the waste industry for one of the major consultancies and have to undertake due diligence on the plants both before the contracts can be signed off and before the operations can commence.

There may be some contamination that is disposed off from some plants ( and others the majority will be land filled but the purpose was to reduce the biodegradability of the material to reduce methane/co2 emissions but these are thankfully rare) but it absolutely won’t be directly conveyored into landfill because they wouldn’t be able to record the weight and would not be able to record duty of care info.

With a lot of recyclable material there’d maybe be a better end result if it was just burned as fuel for power instead investing the energy in transporting, sorting and remanufacturing it. Recycling would be much more effective if we had a much more local economy, as we used to have when the dairy was local, the pop man was local and packaging went in small circles between the manufacturer and the user.

But if I put something in the recycling bin, and its then got to find its way back to china before it can find its way back to me then theres a fruitlessness in that maybe.

The market for paper, cardboard, wood and metals is pretty stable. For plastics it is very volatile, then there’s also the nightmare of sorting through all the products to figure out what type of plastics are involved. It needs a stable and profitable market to establish the infrastructure to make it work well, as happens in the other recycling markets.

Then you also have Local Authroities who are pants at recycling and employ cowboys and those who are good and have decent sorting and selling on systems in place.

Finally the only way to expand these markets is to get people to recycle more and to a higher quality. If tainted batches of recycleables are dumped in landfill due to economics, but behaviour change over a longer term is secured I reckon it could be a worthwhile practice.

All IMHO of course.

I double the bullshit call, I manage a large waste contract and used to work in local authority alongside the waste dept. plus a very good friend of mine is a broker for recyclable materials. Three perspectives on the waste stream here and the only recyclable materials that are landfilled are usually spoiled. Most spoiled materials now end up bailed and burnt for fuel either in the fledgling waste to energy market here or in northern europe.
If there is waste being conveyed straight from a waste recovery facility to a landfill it may only be a fraction of the waste the goes into the place in the first place