Where does Islington's recyclable material go?

In a nutshell Grosvenor Waste. Islington Council and six other North London boroughs manage its waste disposal and recycling activities throgh the North London Waste Authority. In turn the NLWA has contracts with London Waste who handle non recyclable waste and composting and Grosvenor Waste who handle the contents of the green boxes.

The contents of the green boxes is mechanically sorted at the Materials Recyling Facility at Crayford by passing the waste through rotating drums etc. A lot but not all of the recyclable material can be easily extracted. The residual waste has to be landfilled or incinerated. However in some high profile news stories covered by the BBC and the Guardian, some of this waste has turned up in Indonesia and China.

Of course it would be much better to get householders to sort all waste into separate bins and collect separately. And this used to happen in Islington up to a couple of years ago. Contamination of the recycled materials such as the glass is much lower and the glass fetches a better price. The problem is that Inner London boroughs like Islington and Hackney have previously struggled to get their recycling rates up to the same level as the middle class boroughs like Barnet and the argument is that it is better to have an easier system that encourages higher participation. Their is another reason; the UK government is obliged to reach recycling levels determined by the EU. Unfortunately the emphasis is on the weight of waste collected rather than the energy recovered or the quality of the recycled material.

From our point of as residents, the best tip is to avoid packaging materials and when you have to buy packaged items, select items that are wrapped with packaging that Grosvenor Waste can handle. Cardboard, card and paper and good; most plastics are bad because they cannot be distinguished from one another. Compound materials like plastic welded onto cardboard, used in tetrapaks cannot be recycled by Grosvenor Waste; there are alternatives.

Islington Council provides a limited amount of information about their green box scheme. We have asked the Council to set up an email list so that residents can keep in touch with developments about their recycling service. However they do not think this would be worthwhile as many residents do not have internet access would be excluded.

Things do change and do email me if you think any of this is now out of date or wrong.

P.S. The NLWA has set up the North London Recycling Forum which is a network of council officers, and organisations and small businesses offering recycling solutions.