Recycling myths
Separate out recycling fact from recycling fiction with our mythbusters...
FICTION: All my recycling ends up getting thrown away with the rubbish anyway.
FACT: This is not true. Your recycling is either separated out when it is collected, or if you have seen your recycling collected in the same lorry as your rubbish, special machinery separates the rubbish from the recycling later on. Your rubbish goes to a Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) plant where it is shredded, dried and turned into fuel, and your recycling removed taken to a MRF where it is sorted gets recycled into new products.
FICTION: There is no point recycling, it doesn’t make a difference.
FACT: Yes it does! Recycling stops tonnes of rubbish being buried in landfill. In the UK, recycling saves about 10-15 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year, which is the equivalent of taking 3.5 million cars off the road.
FICTION: You can only recycle paper a few times.
FACT: Fibres in paper start to break down after they have been recycled five or six times, but the material can still be used to make egg cartons, packaging, loft insulation, paints and even new road surfaces.
FICTION: Recycling metal uses more energy than extracting the raw material in the first place.
FACT: Recycling aluminium cans saves up to 95% of the energy needed to make new cans from fresh raw material. The energy saved in not having to make just one aluminium can from scratch is enough to power a TV for 3 hours. Every tonne of new aluminium made creates 4 tonnes of waste, whereas a tonne of recycled aluminium creates no waste!
FICTION: Recycled glass is worse quality than other glass.
FACT: Glass can be recycled endlessly without any loss of quality.