What Happens To Your Recycling When It Gets Picked Up?

Nothing magical but no less wonderful...

One of the important things to know about recycling is what happens to it when it gets picked up from the recycling point at work or the dustbin at the end of your road. When you know this, it makes you realise how important the whole process is, and how when you choose to recycle your can of beans, you are choosing, along with many other people in the world, to care about our planet. Here is an outline of the process for your information and to give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside...<br/><br/> Step One: Pick Up<br/><br/> There is a whole fleet of recycling lorries and vans in every town which go around and collect each and every bit of recycling people put in their bins. They gather them up weekly and take what they collect to their nearest recycling centre.<br/><br/> Step Two: Sorting Centre<br/><br/> Your local sorting centre will do pretty much what it says on the tin. Great piles of recyclables are unloaded into a machine or onto a floor to be sorted into their respective materials. Usually: metal, paper and plastic. These three materials are then either sent to a section for processing or put back on a truck to be taken to a specialist facility.<br/><br/> Step Three: Recycling<br/><br/> At this stage any metal is melted down into a pure metal and heated to burn off all other impurities it has picked up along the way. Metal is then made into useable sheets or rods or blocks and sent off to factories where they are turned back into useable products like cans or car parts. Paper is soaked and cleaned and broken down into its wood/paper pulp form, the ink is then bleached out so that it goes back to being white, then it is made back into huge sheets of paper and sent off to newspaper and toilet paper companies. Plastic is processed into its basic elements also and sent to bottle manufacturers and speed boat makers. Did you know that an office clearance can unearth a massive amount of recyclables and whenever there is an increase in furniture removal London always produces the most recyclables?<br/><br/> Step Four: Reuse (Fuzzy Feeling)<br/><br/> The final stage comes after you buy a product which is made from recycled materials. Next time you pick up a can that says '100% Recycled' on it you can feel warm and fuzzy knowing that your can of beans may well have made it all the way through the process and be back in your hand again as a new product and not lying in a landfill somewhere growing rust.<br/><br/><br/><br/>

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