What happens to your recycling?

At first all recycling is collected from your doorstep.

Dry recycling is then consolidated at a Materials Recycling Facility (MRF), in Birmingham . From here it gets sorted and sent to the various destinations for recycling into new products.

• Newspapers are sent to Kent and made into - you've guessed it - newspapers!

• Assorted plastic packaging is sent to Leicester and made into plastic bottles that could be back on Marks and Spencer's shelves with milk in them within 14 days.

• Tetra Paks - a new item - are sent to Caerphilly, South Wales and made into cardboard.

• Bottles are sent to West Yorkshire and melted down to make road aggregate, thereby saving on mining raw materials.

Garden and food waste are sent to a specialist composting plant in Edmonton and made into compost used for UK farms. Much of which is used in Enfield 's parks and open spaces. This will shortly include food waste - another new item which you can only recycle at the moment if you are in a wheelie bin pilot area. This composting process saves on the use of fertilizer in the agricultural industry, which is one of the main contributors to greenhouse gases.

You can also recycle other materials at Enfield 's recycling centre in Barrowell Green. They include batteries, cooking oil, electrical appliances, flat glass, fluorescent tubes, used engine oil, hardcore and rubble, textiles and shoes, wood and timber and scrap metal.

(Our Enfield - October 2009)

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