Black box materials - where are they destined?
Come with us to see what happens to the all the different materials which you can put in your black box……
- aluminium tins, cans, foil and aerosols
- car and household batteries
- engine oil
- glass bottles and jars
- mobile phones
- paper
- shoes and textiles
- steel tins, cans and aerosols
- Yellow Pages
What happens to your aluminium cans, foil and aerosols?
Having collected your aluminium from your black box we take it to ECT’s recycling depot in Mill Hill. They are then taken, along with the steel, to a plant in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, run by reprocessor AMG.
Once at the plant, reprocessor AMG separates the metals; the steel with a magnet and the aluminium by a process “like a magnet in reverse". The materials are then shredded and baled.
The aluminium then goes to Novelis in Warrington, Cheshire, where it is turned into coil and sold to can makers in the UK or abroad. One such firm is Ball Packaging in Wrexham, which turns reprocessed aluminium into cans for drinks such as Coca-Cola or Guinness.
One of the best things that you, as an individual, can do for the environment is to get into the habit of recycling aluminium. The recycling process uses much less energy than making the metal the first time - it's simply a matter of re-melting the aluminium ready to use again. Recycling aluminium requires only five per cent of the energy it takes to make new aluminium – this means it produces only five per cent of the CO2 emissions
Helping tackle deforestation in Africa by recycling aluminium
And even better, every time you recycle your aluminium it will be helping tackle deforestation and small rural communities in Malawi.
The Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (ALUPRO) will ensure that a fruit tree will be grown for every tonne of aluminium recycled in the UK – which will provide good food as well as the basis for fruit drying and juicing enterprises, adding value to the crop as the trees mature.
With the help of UK recyclers, ALUPRO are planning to plant more than 85,000 fruit trees over the initial 2 year period, as well as providing 15 jobs, and training programmes for around 25 volunteers at each of the 75 village nurseries.
So get recycling today and let’s see how many trees will be planted in Malawi for Barnet.
What happens to your car and household batteries?
Our re-processor, G and P Batteries (the UK's largest collector of waste batteries), takes your household and car batteries from ECT’s recycling depot in Barnet, to their factory in Willenhall in the West Midlands. They collect, sort and recycle car and household batteries in an environmentally sound way.
Once the batteries reach G and P Batteries, they are separated into those which contain lead acid and those which don’t. Batteries are then either recycled in a furnace or they are treated chemically. Each battery chemistry requires a different recycling process to achieve the most effective recovery of material.
Batteries which go to landfill sites are very damaging for the environment. When the outside casing rots away, the toxic chemicals inside batteries seep into the soil or water table.
Currently around 600 million UK household batteries weighing 22,000 tonnes - the equivalent weight of 110 Jumbo Jets – are sent to landfill unnecessarily every year. Make sure you recycle yours.
What happens to your engine oil?
M2 Environmental Solutions collect engine oil from ECT’s recycling depot and transport it to M2’s depot in Cambridgeshire.
At the processing plant in Cottenham, Cambs, the oil is transferred into huge holding tanks. Tests are carried out on the oil to enable reprocessing staff to understand exactly what sort of oil they are dealing with and decide on the best way to clean it.
The oil is then cleaned, separated, shaken and cracked. The ‘cracking’ is simply a result of the oil and any water residues separating. Finally, after all of these processes have been completed, only the ‘good oil’ is left. This oil is mixed with kerosene and becomes known as RFO – ‘reclaimed fuel oil’. RFO is often used in factories for their industrial heating systems.
It is very important to dispose of oil correctly. Oils and fuels are the most common cause of water pollution. Even a small quantity can cause a lot of damage to the environment and threaten human health. Oil can pollute rivers, causing harm to fish, ducks, swans, and other wildlife, and removing vital oxygen from the water.
The Smithsonian Institute estimate that 1.63 billion litres of waste oil gets into the sea annually by being poured down the drain. That’s three times more than from routine maintenance, 10 times more than from major oil spills and 25 times more than from offshore drilling activities.
What happens to your glass bottles and jars?
Your brown, green and white glass is reprocessed by O-I Manufacturing (UK) Ltd (formerly known as British Glass) in a factory in Harlow, Essex (about 30 miles away).
After colour sorting, air separation and magnets remove labels and other debris, finally the glass is ready to be crushed. After crushing the glass to fragments of 1.5cm, the glass is melted at temperatures of about 1,500°c, mixed with raw materials and put through moulds to create new glass bottles for beer or wine.
The new glass bottles are then sold onto drinks manufacturers such as T Anheuser Busch which makes Budweiser beer, Diageo which makes drinks including Smirnoff Ice and Gordon’s Gin, and Inbev, makers of Stella Artois and Labatts.
Creating new glass bottles for manufacture from old bottles is a virtually infinite process which conserves raw materials, reduces energy consumption, and also reduces the volume of waste sent to landfill.
Whereas recycling a bottle can give it another chance, glass that is thrown away and ends up in landfill will never decompose.
What happens to your mobile phones?
Mobile phones are now cheaper and more disposable than ever. Every time you put out a mobile phone to be recycled in Barnet, you will be raising money for the Tree House Trust, an educational charity for children with severe autism, which is based in North London.
Having collected the mobile phones from the kerbside we deliver them to the Tree House Trust. The Tree House Trust work with their corporate partners, the Carphone Warehouse, who can generate £9.00 for each phone donated.
Having been collected and taken to the Tree House Trust, the mobiles are bagged up in specially marked bags and then sent to a recycling agency - Carphone Logistics in Wednesbury - where the component parts are broken down and environmentally disposed of.
The Carphone Warehouse, who oversee this recycling process, split the £9.00 from each mobile, donating a minimum of £3.00 to the Tree House Trust and an additional £3.00 to a young person’s helpline called ‘getconnected’.
Any additional profits generated are filtered back to the Tree House Trust via the Carphone Warehouse.
What happens to your paper?
The recycling of paper is a very efficient and quick process which means that your paper can be recycled and turned into a new paper in as little as a week. So how does that happen?
Relax and read your papers over the weekend and put them out in your black box or communal flats recycling bin for us to collect, early in the week.
Paper is stored until it is collected midweek and whizzed around the M25 to the re-processor, Aylesford Newsprint, in Kent. This is a large 60-acre site, which takes in about 90 lorry-loads of paper a day and produces more than 400,000 tonnes of newsprint a year.
Aylesford Newsprint ‘cleans’ the newspaper ready for re-use. This means – in very basic terms – that the old paper is mixed with hot water, the ink is removed with a special soap and the paper is then ‘tumbled’ into separate fibres. It is then put through pressers which turn it into recycled paper ready for newsprint.
The recycled newsprint is sold to news companies including News International, which publishes the Times and the Sun. So hey presto - your Sunday or daily paper is on your doorstep again one week later, in recycled form, ready for you to read.
What happens to your shoes and textiles?
We send your shoes, unwanted clothes and blankets to D. Robinson & Son, in Northampton, for sorting.
At D. Robinson & Son, shoes, clothes and blankets are separated into piles. Pairs of shoes, clothes and blankets that are in good condition, find their way to the developing world to be reused.
Clothes and blankets that are in poorer condition are shredded to be made into cotton felt/wadding and reused to make household mops, dusters and even industrial wiping cloths.
It’s estimated that more than 1 million tonnes of textiles are thrown away every year, with most of this coming from household sources. Make sure your shoes and textiles don't go to waste.
What happens to your steel tins, cans and aerosols?
Like aluminium we take your steel to a plant in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, run by reprocessor AMG. Here the metals are separated, shredded and baled.
AMG sends most of the tin and the steel to steel firms in the UK or abroad, where it is put to different uses.
At one of the destinations, Cardiff-based steel company Celsa, it is generally made into bars and other products for the building industry.
Last year, we collected 622 tonnes of aluminium and steel cans from Barnet residents. This is the equivalent in weight of about 75 double-decker buses.
What happens to your Yellow Pages?
Raven Recycling in Croydon receive regular deliveries of Yellow Pages collected in Barnet and manage the process of turning them into something very useful around the house.
Having been packed into containers the Yellow Pages are delivered to the recycling plant where they are ‘mashed’ in a machine which turns them into pulp.
At the pulp stage the Yellow Pages are now no longer yellow. In fact they are sold on as greyboard, which is used as a key component of that important and durable household wallpaper – woodchip.
Each house receives a new Yellow Pages every year. Make sure yours doesn’t go to waste, pop it out in your black box.
