Certainly wasn't. We really want people to recycle for financial as well as ecological reasons. Every tonne of general waste costs about £130 to incinerate, whilst food waste costs less than £20 to dispose of (by anaerobic digestion) and green waste £30-50. Plastics ,cardboard, paper and metals still have a value if they are pure and Hounslow's system means our output is much purer than most authorities.Obviously staples, windows in envelopes etc makes the output less pure but reprocessors will accept a certain amount of impurity.Recycling is messy (no pun intended) and imprecise, and the more you learn the more you realise you don't know.Our kerbside sorted recycyling goes to the Southall Lane Centre where it is further sorted and baled. Other stuff, whether its street bins, general household waste or recycled stuff from blocks of flats (which have a different sorting regime) go to Transport Avenue in Brentford. this is owned by West London Waste Authority which works for 6 Boroughs including Ealing, Richmond, Hillingdon etc. There is some sorting there and some stuff recycled (but much less pure than Southall Lane) and what's left is packed into trains and sent to West London Waste's incinerator near Bristol (don't ask me why there!) Virtually nothing gooes to landfill and only 5 trains a week go to Bristol now compared to 11 a few years ago (covering 6 boroughs)There's a Festival of Waste in Brentford MArket on 29th July if you want to learn more!
Guy Lambert ● 2111d