So we’re being asked to recycle everything... what happens then?

Last updated at 10:27, Tuesday, 26 May 2009

As the threats to our environment grow more and more worrying, most people accept the importance of measures such as conserving energy and recycling rubbish.

Paul Davidson, recycling manager at Cumbria Waste Management

And Cumbrian citizens, it seems, are greener than most. We currently recycle around 39 per cent of our refuse – whether cans, bottles, paper, plastic or garden waste – compared to a 31 per cent rate for England as a whole.

It isn’t all rosy – a new report has put Allerdale in the bottom 10 for recycling in England.

The survey, carried out by the Government’s Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), found that Allerdale Borough Council came 391st out of 397 English districts for its recycling rates.

Few of us know happens to all these materials after they leave our kerbsides – and what they are turned into.

We decided to find out.

Most of Cumbria’s recycling is collected on behalf of the district councils by a firm called Cumbria Waste Recycling.

The company employs 130 people, at depots in Kingmoor Road in Carlisle and Isabella Road in Workington, where plastic, glass, paper and cans from the Carlisle and Eden districts and much of Allerdale and Copeland are taken.

The wagons which come to our kerbsides have different compartments in the back for different materials, and workers divide the contents of our green boxes and bags between these compartments so that they are already sorted when they arrive back at the depots.

Manager Paul Davidson said recycling had grown so popular in Cumbria that the firm is now 10 times the size it was when it first opened 11 years ago.

“We’ve seen a massive increase in participation,” Mr Davidson said. “More and more people are taking note of recycling.

“When we first started we were dealing with 60 tonnes of waste a week. Now it’s about 600 tonnes.

“We had one driver and two wagons then. Now we have 40 drivers and 35 wagons.”

In fact the business is continuing to grow so fast that they are about to apply for planning permission to extend their Carlisle premises.

When the materials arrive at the depots they are all baled up – and then sent off to different sites around the country to be turned into something new.

First published at 11:35, Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk