What happens in a recycling centre?

What are recycling centres?

Recycling centres are specialist locations where rubbish is taken to be recycled.

Recycling centres play an important role to embrace the actions to “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle” across the UK, this includes rubbish that’s collected from households and businesses.

What is the purpose of recycling centres?

As the name suggests, recycling centres are specially designed for rubbish to be taken to and to be recycled. There are council-built recycling centres and independent centres but both places do the same job. Independent centres may offer specialist recycling services including items that cannot be taken to standard centres. Once your rubbish is collected, for example after a skip hire, your waste will be taken to a recycling centre where everything is sorted and different materials are separated out using manual procedures as well as machinery.

The recycling centre process:

Inspection

Materials may come through on a conveyor belt so they can be visually inspected and any non-recyclable items are removed.

Separation

Next, everything is separated so that all the same materials are put together. This makes the recycling process much easier and ensures that the right technique is used.

Weighting

Once the materials have been inspected, separated and are in a reusable condition, they are weighed out to be sold as recycled products.