Where does your Macclesfield recycling go?

I was sent this a couple of days ago by Cllr Smetham. Being a geek, I found it interesting, and I thought you might too:

Material collected for recycling in the Macclesfield area is sorted and separated at the kerbside. It is then taken to the council’s depot in Macclesfield to be passed to contractors for processing. The materials are sold on to approved industry sources to be turned into new products.

Paper Recycling collected at kerbside is sent to UPM-Kymmene Ltd paper mill in Shotton. Here it is recycled into paper for newsprint.

Glass Recycling collected at kerbside is sent to Recresco Ltd for processing into glass cullet for use in making new glass bottles. Further information can be found at their website.

Green Garden Waste collected in the green wheelie bins is taken to CRJ on farm composting in Allostock where it is composted in an open windrow system.
Aluminium cans collected are sorted from the steel cans at the councils’ depot in Macclesfield and sent to Novelis in Warrington recycled back to aluminium sheets.

Cardboard collected is sent to a local merchant who then supplies markets in the UK and abroad.

Steel is processed by Corus in the UK.

The Salvation Army collects textiles from the council’s depot, the textiles are then sorted and sent to Salvation Army shops in the UK and to various countries worldwide.

The recycling process depends on market demand for the materials collected. The UK has a growing market for recyclable material with new businesses coming on line particularly in the area of plastic recycling that will increase UK demand for the material. Other materials as described above may be exported to nations where there is a greater heavy industry demand for the raw materials.

While we would wish to support the UK market, export of good quality recyclable raw material is not necessarily a negative option but a product of the global market we are part of. Companies exporting product for recycling are controlled by the Environment Agency to prevent the export of waste. From a carbon miles perspective most export of recyclable product is on ships already delivering goods to the UK that could otherwise have returned empty. That said, as the UK market for recyclable product increases it is likely there will be less need for long distance export.