What happens to your rubbish after collection?

It starts with who collects your rubbish

What happens to your rubbish after collection depends first on who takes it. Anyone who carries other people's waste as a business must be registered as a waste carrier, and both householders and businesses have a duty of care to hand waste only to someone authorised to take it. A registered carrier delivers the load to a licensed site. Waste handed to an unregistered trader may be fly-tipped instead. The rest of this guide describes the normal, lawful route.

Step by step: from the van to the sorting floor

1. The loaded vehicle drives to a licensed waste transfer station.
2. On arrival the load is usually weighed and the type of waste is recorded.
3. Waste is tipped out so that it can be checked.
4. Large, obvious items such as metal, timber, mattresses and cardboard are pulled out first.
5. Remaining mixed waste is separated by hand, by machine or both, depending on the site.
6. Each sorted material is stored in its own bay or container until there is enough to send on.
7. Bulk loads then travel to reprocessors, composting sites or energy recovery plants.

Every transfer station works a little differently. Some rely mainly on people picking materials from a moving belt, while others also use screens and magnets to separate items by size and type. Sites are permitted for particular kinds of waste, so a carrier chooses one that suits the load. Loads that arrive already separated, such as a van full of clean cardboard or timber, need far less handling and can go straight to the right bay.

What the main materials become

• Metal: sorted by type and sent to be melted down and made into new metal products.
• Wood: clean timber is commonly chipped, then reused in board products or burned for energy recovery.
• Cardboard and paper: baled and sent to mills, where the fibres are pulped into new paper and packaging.
• Hardcore: brick, concrete and rubble are commonly crushed and reused as aggregate in construction.
• Garden waste: commonly composted and used as a soil improver.
• Plastics: sorted by type, with recyclable grades baled and sent for reprocessing.
• Electrical items: sent to specialist facilities that recover metals and other materials.

Clean, dry and separated material is far easier to recycle than material that has been mixed with food or liquids. Businesses that produce steady amounts of one material often arrange a dedicated cardboard collection or plastic waste clearance for that reason, and trades with timber offcuts can do the same with a wood waste clearance. Keeping a material apart from the start gives it the best chance of being used again.

Items that follow their own route

Some things cannot go through general sorting. Upholstered seating such as sofas may contain persistent organic pollutants, so in England it must be kept separate and sent for incineration rather than landfill. Fridges and freezers contain refrigerant gases and go to specialist plants where these are removed safely. Plasterboard is kept apart from general waste as well. Certain hazardous materials, asbestos for example, need a specialist contractor from the outset.

Waste that cannot be recycled

After sorting, a portion is always left over: dirty packaging, mixed fragments and materials that nobody can currently reprocess. This is called residual waste. It is typically sent to an energy from waste plant, where it is burned to generate electricity or heat, or to a licensed landfill site. Which of the two applies depends on the transfer station and the facilities available in the area. A good sorting operation aims to keep this residual share as small as possible.

The paperwork that follows waste

Waste is tracked on paper as well as physically. When a business hands waste to a carrier, a waste transfer note records what the waste is and who has taken it, and businesses should keep these notes. Householders are well advised to keep a receipt or invoice showing the carrier's name and registration details. If you are ever asked where your waste went, that record is your answer.

You can ask any collector where your waste will be taken. A legitimate carrier can name the transfer station or facility it uses and will give you its registration number without fuss. Be wary of anyone who is vague about the destination, wants cash with no receipt, or quotes a price that seems too low to cover disposal, because tipping waste at a licensed site costs every carrier money.

Where the rubbish we collect goes

Rubbish Removals Ltd takes the waste it collects to licensed facilities for sorting, and around 90% of what we collect is recycled. That applies to household jobs booked as domestic waste removal and to business loads booked as commercial waste collection. We hold an upper tier waste carrier licence, number CBDU526130, and provide waste transfer notes and invoices as required. You can help more of your load to be recycled in a few simple ways.

• Keep cardboard dry and flatten the boxes.
• Bag general rubbish separately from wood, metal and rubble.
• Leave food waste out of mixed loads where you can.
• Tell us about anything unusual or hazardous, and send a photo so we can advise.