Around Ealing Summer 2015 | Page 35

RECYCLING BOTTLES, THEN S JUMPERS, THEN CLOTHS er, 1. You buy a bottle of water, you drink it and then you recycle the bottle. Along with the other plastic, it is sent to a reprocessing o plant where it is sorted into different types of plastic and then ground into beads or flakes. 2. These remnants are then bought by companies to melt them down to manufacture all sorts of things, including jumpers. If you bought such a jumper until it got old and tired, you could put it in one of the many textile banks around the borough – if it is in good condition it could be sent to clothe people in need, home or abroad. If it is not of sufficient quality it would be sent to be recycled within the UK. 3. Industrial firms then convert the material into handy objects like cleaning cloths, which you then might buy to clean your kitchen worktop. CIRCULAR NEWS: NEWSROUND AND ROUND Your magazines or newspapers may already be made out of 100% recycled paper, but they can be recycled again, and again. Paper was ta taken away by the c council to a special plant w where it was mixed with w water and pulped, and t the ink released from t the fibres; meanwhile, plastics, metals, grit and other materials were also removed through screening. The pulp would then be injected between two wire meshes to form a damp paper web, then passed through a series of presses and tion On loca of separated nge e a wide ra round th There is d bins a anks an lectrical b e recycling lly for old ‘on the e especia lass; and gh: Som borou ing or g loth arks. For ers for c of our p oods, oth number g here, in a le, and w ling bins o’ recyc an recyc g uc tres what yo cling cen more on and recy use g the re rd, visit includin Greenfo ton and cycling in Ac ov.uk/re .ealing.g www steam-heated drying cylinders. Eventually, bright, clean newsprint on jumbo reels were transported to the printing presses and publishing companies to be reused. CORE OF THE MATTER: FOOD WASTE After being popped into a kitchen caddy, the apple core would have ended up in the food waste bin outside the home, and then collected by the council’s recycling trucks. It would then be taken to a special processing plant to recycle the food waste into a liquid fertiliser to be used for agricultural purposes. The process, called anaerobic digestion, also generates electricity which would go straight into the National Grid. MORE INFORMATION To find out what you can recycle, and where, and lots more details, visit www.ealing.gov.uk/recycling Five recycling facts 1 It takes seven days for your paper to be recycled from collection to newspaper 2 In a year, an individual drinks can could be recycled eight times, saving enough energy to make 160 new cans 3 4 5 It takes 25 recycled drinks bottles to ma ke a fleece jacket Every tonne of cardboard recycled saves 17 trees Around £140 million worth (350,000 tonnes) of used clothing is wasted by being thrown in the rubbish bin and sent to landfill in the UK every year instead of being recycled or reused around ealing Summer 2015 35