The CBR now operates a range of specially designed vehicles (due to the narrow streets) as well as one vehicle designed to lift the heavy bins at the mini recycling centres, one for office and business waste as well as one for less accessible areas of the countryside.
1.2
Avon Friends of the Earth
Avon friends of the Earth went in to receivership in August of 2003, by this point it was responsible for setting up similar kerbside recycling schemes in numerous towns and cities such as Bristol, Bath and the Somerset area. These services are now being run by ECT.
By the end, they had been in operation for over 30years, and had been responsible for numerous changes and schemes in the Bath and Somerset area, what had started as a not for profit organisation had developed into a £6million business.
1.3
ECT Group
ECT group started life in 1979 as part of the Ealing Voluntary Service Council, with four vehicles providing transport for Ealing residents, after 28 years, ECT group has grown into a leading not for profit organisation, producing a £55million turnover. The ECT in now the country’s largest community recycling organisation, and through partnerships with local authorities, is responsible for providing recycling schemes to over 2 million people across the country.
2.1
Technical
2.1.1
Aluminium
Prior to being taken to an aluminium recycling unit, all cans are placed on a conveyor belt and passed under a magnet to identify any steel cans that may have been added to the recycling bin by mistake. This process is extremely effective as steel is a ferrous metal and is magnetic, where as aluminium has no magnetic properties, thus remains on the belt as the steel cans are removed. The remaining cans are then crushed and made into bails to be transported to the recycling plant.
Once at the recycling facility, cans are shredded and passes through yet another magnetic device just to check that no small sections of steel have been missed, once this process is complete, the shredded pieces of aluminium are passed through a decoater, where they are exposed to a 500 degree heat, the purpose of this process is to remove all decoration, branding, and paint, by the end of this process it is near impossible to distinguish between what was once a coca cola can and an Asda value tin of beans.
Once decoated, the shredded aluminium is placed in a 700degree furnace, causing the aluminium to melt. The molten aluminium is then transferred to a holding cylinder that removes any impurities and gasses remaining in the metal. The liquid aluminium is then poured into chilled metal moulds called ingot, the ingots are then taken to have the ends cut to be made square, these ingots are then taken to a rolling facility and from there the cooled rolls of aluminium are taken right back to the start of the process again, ready to be made into yet another coke can.
2.1.2
Glass
Although there are numerous different processes for recycling glass, as many different objects have different properties, for example a Pyrex cooking dish could withstand a much higher heat then a jam jar, in this report we are simply going to look at container glass, as it is the most common type of glass for household recycling.
Although there is no colour coded recycling from household pick ups, recycling centres tend to segregate glass according to colour. Glass is collected and stored at a depot until the volume of glass is suitable to make the recycling process cost effective.
The first process the glass goes through is to be crushed, the crushed glass, known as cullet is then exposed to a number of factors to remove any other materials that may be contaminating the glass, a series of magnets, jet streams, lasers and vacuums are used to remove materials such as both ferrous and non ferrous metals, ceramics and papers. The cullet is now ready to be recycled to be remade in to bottles etc or can be further crushed to be used as aggregate. The cullet is poured into a furnace and heated at a temperature of 1500 degrees. The molten glass is then poured into moulds to produce new bottles, jars etc. recycled glass has a lower melting point than new glass which enables the recycling process to save 30% of the energy used if it were new glass being processed.
2.1.3
Paper
Paper for recycling can be collected from residential, office and recycling sites. Recycling 1 tonne of paper uses 70%less energy than manufacturing new paper from trees and 40% less water. Paper must be sorted and graded before recycling, not the quickest of processes when you consider that there are over 50 grades of waste paper, including, low grade, de-inking grade, kraft grade and high grade. Once the paper is collected it is baled and transported to a paper mill. The paper is then placed in a vat and mixed with water; this process breaks down the paper into strands of cellulose, called fibres and eventually becomes a mushy pulp.
The pulp is then filters through a series of hole and slots, designed to remove any remaining particles of glue or other contaminants, for certain process the paper must also be de inked, this can be done through one of two processes. The washing process involves the paper being exposed to chemicals and then rinsed with water to remove the ink. The second process is by flotation, air can be passed through the pulp and creating a layer of foam, this foam retains the ink and can then be skimmed off.
The next stage involves pouring the paper over a wire screen, this screen allows the water to drain out form the paper and in doing so, allows fibres within the paper to reform and form a solid sheet. This sheet is now passed through a series of rollers to further remove any water, and heated cylinders to dry the paper. The paper is the rolled or cut before shipping.
2.1.4
Plastic
Once collected, plastics are separated into different polymer types at a materials recycling facility. Different polymer types have different properties and therefore different recycling processes. The different polymer types are identified by a series of symbols as seen below.
Once sorted, plastics are baled and transported to a reprocessing site. Once there, plastic objects are shredded and passed under a metal detector and dusted to remove any contaminants. The cleaned plastic segments are then dried and melted to form new products. The molten plastic is further filtered to remove any contaminants, and extruded through a wire screen to form long strands. In some cases the plastic is extruded to form extremely fine strands that can then be woven to produce fleeces and sleeping bags as opposed to you’re usual plastic bottles. If not used for fine fibres, the strands are dried and pelleted, ready for storage until they are needed to be moulded into new products.
2.2
Economic Aspects
Baths Material Recycling Facility (MRF) requires a staff of 23. The estimated budget in 1996/97 was £564,000 for the City of Bath Recycling. The estimated revenue provided by the 4,280 metric tonnes to be recovered was £384,000, resulting in the net cost to the council to be £180,000 which calculates at £42 per metric tonne. In addition to this the council spent a further £148,000 towards the cost of depreciation in support of the programme over the 1996/97.
Although these figures are ten years old, it is now hard to get hold of up-to-date figures as the recycling programme has now changed hands and developed to cover a much larger area than originally stated.
Summary
The recycling scheme set up by Avon friends of the earth in the mid 80’s has gradually grown and developed into the muti million pound not for profit organisation it is today. What started as a small recycling scheme to aid a community of 350,000 now enables over 2 million people to efficiently recycle their waste materials and more importantly, the publicity raised by this scheme has encouraged people to recycle because they want to, not because they have to. As a result of these household schemes the next generation are growing up with recycling as part of their everyday routine and will hopefully demonstrate the same habits to generations to come. Effectively, what started of as a group of do gooders collecting rubbish could effectively have changed the practices of our society for years to come.
3.2
References
Gies, G. (1996). A British community implements a recycling program. BioCycle., July 1, 72. http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed January 9, 2008).
SITA UK. (2003), The recycling process. [Online] SITA UK, available from
(Accessed January 9, 2008)
