Most people are recycling right in Greater Manchester. However truck loads of paper and card collected last year couldn’t be recycled because some people are putting the wrong things in their paper and card bins and even purposely hiding rubbish in their bins.
This is a problem because companies that process paper and card only want dry paper and card recycling. Wrong things in the recycling bin, lowers the quality which means they can’t recycle it and it will end up being processed as general waste instead.
For every tonne of poor quality paper and card which has to be processed as general waste, costs your council, on average, an extra £88 per tonne – that’s up to £520 per truck load.
In June, 168 lorry loads were rejected, which is 833 tonnes.
When your paper and card recycling bins are collected and emptied they go to a transfer loading station in Greater Manchester where the truck load is inspected.
Things that we found include:
Hundreds paper and card bins are emptied every week across Greater Manchester. There are staff to inspect the quality of the truck loads but they only have minutes to do this – it is not their job to sort out other people’s rubbish.
No, good quality paper and card recycling is delivered to Saica a paper and recycling company in Carrington.
No, nappies and wet wipes are mostly made of plastic. Nappies and wet wipes should go in your general waste bin.
We need everyone in Greater Manchester recycling right.
Make sure you only recycle paper and card in your paper and card recycling bin. Nothing else.
These are the things you can put in your paper and card bin:
1. Tell your friends and family how to recycle right
2. Follow @recycle4gm on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
3. Take part in a virtual open day and see what happens to your recycling
4. Subscribe to our newsletter
5. Tell your local school or community group to book a virtual visit to our recycling facility
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