On 24^th September a number of us from Green Mole Forum went on a guided tour of the Leatherhead MRF. This is next to the household waste site in Randalls Road and receives green bin waste from both Mole Valley and two adjacent districts. We were able to see all the processing stages in action. I didn't take notes at the time but from memory the process goes like this:

1. Feed mixed waste is crushed to crush the glass bottles
2. Crushed glass is removed by gravity (it's heavier than everything else)
3. Ferrous metals are removed by magnets
4. Aluminium cans are removed by a different sort of magnet (excuse my technical ignorance here)
5. Plastic bottles are removed by hand pickers
6. Non-recyclables like plastic bags are removed by hand pickers
7. What is left is paper and card with a maximum of 2% plastic.

The products from 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 are collected and packaged separately and sold for the best price the operator Grundon can get. The paper is turned into large bales which you can see below.

Mole Valley District Council and Grundon clearly see this plant as a success story. Mole Valley now has one of the highest recycling rates in the UK. We also learnt that Mole Valley residents produce high quality recyclable waste - we obey the rules for what can go in the green bins and this helps the MRF produce high quality products.  More recycling means less waste to landfill and this makes money for the council in two ways - it pays less landfill tax, and gets paid for processing other councils' waste.  We were told that the plant makes a profit for Grundon, but were not given the figures: a commercial secret presumably.

Unfortunately it's not all good news.

Although Mole Valley has reduced the fraction of its waste that goes to landfill, the total quantity of waste we produce is still increasing. The net effect is that Mole Valley's landfill waste has only stabilised rather than reduced in quantity. The two big recycling challenges are how to recycle (1) food waste and (2) more plastics. The food from the present Mole Valley food waste collection trials has to go to a plant in Dorset as this is the nearest licenced plant in the UK - not ideal.  Surrey County Council is considering building a digester plant in Surrey to process food and green waste and this looks like something that we should support.  (Mole Valley's garden waste presently is composted in Reading and then used by farmers). The problem with plastic is that there are too many types used in packaging. Grundon hopes that the packaging industry will settle on one type of plastic that can be used for most products and can be recycled. There also needs to more re-usable containers, and this is something we should watch out for and support.