Where does our recycling go?

leakyboots

Any know what's the process after it leaves our homes? Separate landfill and an army of crusties pick through and sort it before sticking into the recycling machine? Genuinely curious

WilyCoyote

This is a rubbish thread!

paddy147

leakyboots wrote: »

Any know what's the process after it leaves our homes? Separate landfill and an army of crusties pick through and sort it before sticking into the recycling machine? Genuinely curious

Old Car/truck/bike tyres are recycled into various coloured rubber chippings and rubber tiles for playgrounds,gardens and landscaping projects.

Elbaston

in the green bin.

demanufactured

China or sometimes Africa

MadsL

Tetrapak cartons are minced up and made into a board type material.

kneemos

demanufactured wrote: »

China or sometimes Africa

Is it even sorted here or just dumped on a ship?

MadsL

kneemos wrote: »

Is it even sorted here or just dumped on a ship?

Plenty of good recycling companies making high quality recycled materials in Ireland.

Here's two examples:

http://www.shabra.com/

http://www.thorntons-recycling.ie/about-us-history

Matt_Trakker

To the place where things get recycled. Duh!

TheBody

A guy I know works for a recycling facility. They used to ship plastics off to China but apparently that market has disappeared. It's now just incinerated.

wil

TheBody wrote: »

A guy I know works for a recycling facility. They used to ship plastics off to China but apparently that market has disappeared. It's now just incinerated.

I've heard that too. Since the recession, market has dropped for many recycleables. Saw some news article showing warehouses full of cardbiard with nowhere to go. Another recycler told me a lot of stuff is going back to landfill.
I have noticed in last few years, some collectors are taking both recycle and non-recycle bins and throwing them in same truck, mixing them up again.
I am not convinced by the wonderful figures for recycling that are regularly published putting us to top of the league in EU. Doesnt add up.

Jeju

demanufactured wrote: »

Off the coast of China or sometimes Africa

FYP

Mr. G

Some of the paper gets shredded and shipped off to China to pig farms as bedding.

A lot of the stuff gets shredded sold to manufacturers. You'll find recycled paper around easily.

The batteries get used again as the materials used are more scarce then they were

wil

demanufactured wrote: »

China or sometimes Africa

A BBc documentary (Blood sweat and luxuries) showed how properly disposed of UK electrical/IT waste was ending up in huge dumps in Ghana, under some quasi-legal loophole.
Kids living on the dump break up and burn off plastic to get small amounts of metal to sell, poisoning themselves in the process.
Used to get that happening here, I've seen it in Dublin, people burning wire to get copper.
Plumes of toxic smoke didnt bother them.

Annasopra

It's been well known for years that a lot of "recycling" just goes to landfill

Michael Moore wrote about it in 2003

http://greenyes.grrn.org/2003/04/msg00052.html

kupus

Lots of plastic gets turned into diesel,
wood gets turned into chippings for playgrounds, or mulch for fertiliser or used as fuel for powerplants
metal gets melted back into metal.
paper gets turned into new paper.
Dumps are used to create extra power to connect into the electricity grid (methane)

.....come to think of it Ireland is way behind in its uses for recycling, ok its a small island country but still a lot can be done instead of shipping it all off to africa, albania, or asia....

so for any budding entrepreneur who hates school
Recycling is a huge industry and its getting bigger every day.