Recycling, everyone wants to do it, and we all know cans, bottles, tins etc go into the recycle bin,

but did you know how easily a well meaning person can wreck everyone elses effort? There are multiple safeguards in place to prevent contamination, both human and mechanical, but as always prevention is better than cure. If you only take one thing from this document, do not put CFL lightbulbs or fluro tubes in your recycle bin. The mercury has the potential to cause huge problems. To understand the big picture, read on.

The process

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The consumer puts recyclables into the recycle bin, the truck takes it to a sorting facility, where it is pre-sorted by hand. The sorters remove obvious contaminates food, nappies, plastic bags, electronics.

Paper and cardboard is mechanically separated, by rotating discs, the lighter objects get flicked up, everything else stays down.

Glass is broken then sorted by colour (clear, brown, green) anything smaller than 10mm goes into the assorted
glass pile. Separating by colour makes a much more valuable product. It is then stored onsite in silos ready to be sent away for recycling.

Paper passes through a machine that removes any flat plastics and metals.

Then it is passed through sensors that can determine with certainty that is paper, using near IR sensors and metal detectors. It is the baled up and ready to be sent away for recycling.

Metals are passed by an electro magnet which pulls all the steel containers away.

A different type of magnetic field is used to separate aluminium cans. These are crushed and baled up ready to be sent away for recycling.

Plastics are sorted using an array of sensors that separate the different types.
be sent away for recycling.

They are baled up and ready to

http://www.1coast.com.au/page8390/What-happens-to-my-recycling.aspx

Things to keep out of the recycle bin

CFL lightbulbs and Fluro tubes.

Official guidelines say that it is appropriate to dispose of these in general waste, wrapped in newspaper. Fluro tubes contain about 15mg of Mercury, CFL (compact Fluorescent) bulbs 5mg. To put it in perspective, an old Mercury thermometer generally would contain around 500mg. CFL bulbs are here to stay and disposal will be an issue. If these go into a recycle bin, and are missed by the pre-sort team, they will be smashed in the glass sorting section. This will contaminate the surrounding glass, and the sorting station. One can assume there would be more safeguards in place, but I was unable to find any mention of them.

For further reading - http://d1027732.mydomainwebhost.com/articles/articles/CFL%20vs%20incandescent.htm http://www.climatechange.gov.au/what-you-need-toknow/lighting/resources/fs.aspxhttp://www.fluorocycle.org.au/recyclers.php can choke up sorting machinery and are not suitable for recycling in your bin. If you put your cans and bottles in a platic bag in your recycle bin, it will be removed at pre-sort and sent to landfill. Most supermarkets have a collection bin.

Plastic bags

contain all sorts of metals and plastic that can (and should) be recycled. But not in your recycle bin. Large items can generally be dropped off at the dump, where it will be sent off for processing. Small items like mobile phones can be dropped off at most phone stores for recycling. The plastics are shredded and reformed into shipping pallets, fence posts, safety barriers, park furnature and many, many other things. The metals are extracted and sold, each mobile phone contains a small amount of gold and lots of copper. Batteries are sent to Korea for processing.

Electronics

If you put electronic waste in the recycle bin, it will go to landfill.

Ceramics
15 grams of ceramic (coffee cups, plates, roof tiles) can contaminate up to 1 tonne of otherwise recyclable glass, sending it to landfill. This wastes not only peoples effort but the fuel and electricity involved in trucking to the sorting station, the blowing, crushing and heating processes, then trucking it off to be dumped. All because someone put a broken coffee cup in the recycle bin. Old dishes can be donated to the salvos, used in the shed for a million different things or used for arts and crafts. Broken ceramics can be re-used in art and craft projects, or simply smashed up and put at the bottom of plant pots. This will allow soil to drain more efficiently. Disposal of ceramics should be done with general waste.

http://greenliving.nationalgeographic.com/ceramic-dishes-recyclable-20222.html http://recyclingweek.planetark.org/documents/doc-78-nrw-recyclingmythsreport.pdf

Glass is made from sand, and while raw materials are cheap and abundant, the process of turning it into glass is
not. The sand must be mined, transported, sifted, heated and go through a long and drawn out process to turn it into glass. Glass from your recyle bin is sorted by colour then crushed, melted and reformed into bottles jars etc. There is no degradation of quality, glass can be recycled over and over. Not all glass can be recycled, all glass food and drink containers can, but things like window panes, pyrex cookware, light bulbs, drinking glasses or mirrors can not. This is because these glasses melt at a higher temperature than jars and bottles. It has the potential to jam the equipment that melts and spins molten glass. The amount of energy saved is quite significant, according to the internet, recycling ten glass bottles saves 1kW/h (around 30c with the carbon tax). 30c might not sound like much, but how many beer bottles get used at a single inner city pub each day, each week? How many pubs in a city, or a county? That is a lot of glass.

http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/science-glass.html http://www.recap.co.uk/recycling-at-home/materials/glass