What happens to the materials collected?

Bin for green waste

This is taken directly to a local farm in Isfield for composting. After delivery by the Council, a local company, KPS Composting Services Ltd, deals with the actual composting. They shred the material and pile it into windrows which are turned regularly. After 12 weeks it is screened to remove any plastic and pieces of wood. It is then ready to be used by the farmer as a soil conditioner.

Composted green waste from CROWN households is now also available to the public. We are working hard with our partners KPS Composting to see how we can make the material collected on the CROWN service available for the public as a soil conditioner. In the interim there is a modest opportunity for householders to bag it up themselves at the following locations:

Robins of Herstmonceux (where it's mixed with topsoil). Telephone:01323 833181

Scaynes Hill Nursery. Telephone:01444 831673

Prices start at approximately £2 per bag.

Red and blue caddy

All recyclable materials are delivered initially to Wealden District Council's Materials Reclamation Facility (MRF) in Uckfield. Here they are sorted, any contaminants are removed, and they are bulked up prior to being transported to the works where they are recycled into new products.

Paper is taken to Aylesford Newsprint in Kent. Here the paper is pulped, cleaned and screened. The ink is then removed using soap and bubbles of air. This pulp is then ready to be made into 100% recycled newsprint called Renaissance. It is drained, pressed, dried and made into rolls, producing a mile of paper every minute. This is then used by many of the national papers as well as local papers, including the Friday-Ad group.

Steel cans go to South Wales to be de-tinned and are then used by Corus (ex-British Steel) for a variety of new steel goods. All steel products contain about 25% recycled material. The old cans may become scissors, paper clips, mountain bikes or fridges.

Aluminium cans are recycled by Novelis (formerly Alcan), which is a purpose built facility in Warrington, Cheshire. This plant takes used aluminium cans from all over Europe. The cans are melted down and the molten aluminium is poured into giant ingot moulds. The ignots are then rolled into sheets and sold on to companies to make new products, such as a new car, plane parts, or even the can containing your next drink!

Aluminium foil is baled at our MRF and taken along with the aluminium cans to Cheshire for recycling. The foil is fed directly into a furnace with other scrap aluminium, such as window frames. It is then poured into ignots and then sold on to casting companies to be used in moulds for car components such as cylinder heads.

Plastic bottles are bailed at our MRF and taken to AWS (Alternative Waste Solutions) in Lincolnshire where they use passive infrared technology to sort the three types of bottles, and then to wash and granulate them ready for sale, mainly in the UK, for new plastic products such as new bottles, wheelie bins, fleece jackets, sign posts and many more useful items.

Beverage cartons are taken to Tetra Pak Ltd. The baled cartons are dropped into a pulper, similar to a giant domestic food mixer, filled with water, and pulped for around 20 minutes. This breaks down the packaging to produce a grey-brown mixture. The aluminium foil and polyethylene are separated from the fibre, which is recovered to make new paper products, such as high strength paper bags or envelopes. The remaining mix of plastic and aluminium can then be used in furniture, to generate energy or even separated out into pure aluminium and paraffin.

Remaining waste from your landfill bin

The remaining waste is taken to one of the two landfill sites in East Sussex, either Beddingham near Lewes, or Pebsham between Bexhill and Hastings, which are run by East Sussex County Council's Contractors, Veolia Environmental Services. It is tipped into disused quarry workings and buried. One of the problems with landfill sites is the emission of landfill gas, which contributes towards global warming. Both landfill sites have gas extraction systems which capture up to half the gas generated and turn it into electricity on site.