In November 2023, ActForEaling collaborated with Ealing Council to take representatives from environmental groups to visit the MRF (Materials Reprocessing Facility) in Crayford, Kent. The aim was to understand better how our recycling is dealt with and why it is important for residents to follow guidelines in order to ensure that as much household waste as possible is collected.
Environmental groups brought together by ActForEaling visited Ealing’s materials recovery facility (MRF) in Crayford Kent on 21st November to find out what actually happens to the stuff in our blue wheelie bins. The group donned safety glasses, hard hats and steel-soled boots to do a tour of N+P, Europe’s largest MRF, a plant that processes 350,000 tonnes of recyclables annually from 29 local authorities.
‘As environmentalists, we often talk about recycling,’ said AfE steering group member, Juliet McDonald. ‘At our monthly Reduce and Recycle Hub, we sometimes hear residents’ fears that the items they painstakingly recycle might not be recycled – or could even end up overseas.’
‘We were relieved to find that it’s well worth taking care to recycle all the permitted items (see the council website). In fact, 48.89% of Ealing’s household waste is successfully reprocessed and reused, via N+P, putting us in the top three of London boroughs for recycling. But if we all increased our efforts Ealing could do even better.’
The challenges
Unfortunately non-recyclables still find their way into batches. At N+P, these have to be removed by hand, which means the Council (and ultimately the residents) will pay extra for processing. Manually sorting rubbish is a physically demanding job, carried out in a noisy, dusty plant, by up to 50 hand-pickers at any one time. If we did more to keep inappropriate or soiled items out of our bins, we could make these workers’ jobs a lot nicer.
In the very worst cases, an entire truck load of recyclables can be rejected (if it is over 20% contaminated), meaning it has to be processed as rubbish elsewhere and extra haulage paid. Thankfully this does not happen regularly; non-recyclables separated out by N+P are turned into aggregated products (Subcoal®) to be used as alternative fuel sources in industry. Around 11% of the materials processed at the facility are turned into pellets.
Plastics, metals and glass are generally reprocessed in the UK. Plastic types PET and HDPE are turned back into themselves, though other plastics (pots, tubs and trays) are much trickier. When our recyclables do go overseas they are not ‘dumped’, but sent for processing by specialists. Germany, for example, takes our aluminium cans, which have a very high financial value, and paper and cardboard is processed at a modern pulp mill in South East Asia.
Whilst it is reassuring the latest technology helps us to manage our waste effectively, representatives from Ealing Friends of the Earth, Southall Transition, CURB and Hanwell and Norwood Green Orchard Trail, who attended AfE’s field trip, were staggered by the sheer volume of waste and the relentlessness of the operation. Transporting recyclables – if using fossil fuels – adds to our carbon footprint. The best thing we can do to combat climate change is to consume less.
Captions:
At Ealing Council’s MRF in Crayford 95% of recyclables are sorted by machine.
For further information about N+P Group, please visit their website here.
Wow, this article on tracing the journey of our recycling by ActForEaling was an eye-opener! Learning about the behind-the-scenes of recycling makes me appreciate the entire process so much more. It’s like a secret adventure for our trash! Kudos to ActForEaling for shedding light on the incredible efforts that go into making our recycling journey a success. I’m feeling more connected to the impact of my actions now. Let’s keep championing the cause of sustainable living!