Members of the Barrow Greener Living team joined U3a for a fascinating visit to the Casepak recycling plant in Leicester. The Materials Recycling Facility takes mixed recycling waste, the content of our green bins, from the whole of Leicestershire (except North West Leicestershire). We had a guided tour of the facility starting with the arrival of the waste, its journey through different stages of sorting to the final product separated and baled to send to companies for reprocessing.

Lorries arrive at the depot and tip their loads of mixed waste onto the factory floor.

The waste travels round the facility on conveyor belts to be sorted by hand and state-of-the-art machinery.

Our visit was both interesting and informative, seeing the processing first hand gave us a great insight into why we are asked to prepare our waste for recycling in a certain way.

• Flat plastic bottles are not recognised by the sorting machine so screw the tops back on and don’t squash them down before disposal.
• Large, bulky and rigid plastic should go to the tip.
• The separation process relies on floating off sheets of paper so keep paper sheets whole and flat.
• Keep cardboard dry, soggy cardboard falls to the bottom of the conveying system and can’t be recycled. Large sheets of cardboard can be put by the side of the green bin if it’s not raining.
• In general, keep waste whole, clean and dry.
• Rejection of materials is usually only 2%, which is incinerated.

Anne Freestone
Barrow Greener Living Group

For a comprehensive guide to recycling in Charnwood visit the Casepak Less Waste website.
https://www.lesswaste.org.uk/recycle/items-accepted-for-recycling-at-casepak/