We've had nothing to say for a while that would have been of interest, but today we really had our eyes opened and learnt a bit about how the recycling plant at Seamer Carr works. On first arrival we thought that the site looked disorganised, but we quickly learnt that they work within the constraints of a very tight budget based on around 5% of the council tax we each pay. They are also working within the physical constraints of the site which is adjacent to the landfill site. Starting with the landfill there is a generation plant burning the methane generated by the site and feeding sufficient electricity into the national grid to power around 7000 homes. The processes, which are in the main automated, succesfully separate paper, cardboard, PET plastics, aerosols, aluminum and steel cans into separate areas for collection and forwarding to various companies who use the materials. The site is also a collection point for the recycled glass, although no sorting is done at Seamer Carr. We had thought that the change from separate collection of various coloured glass and clear glass to all going into the same collections was a retrogade step, but now we know better. When the glass was separated at the point of collection there was an inevitable problem of incorrect glass being put into the bottle bank and this would then need sorting manually. Now the glass is forwarded to a plant for use and the process is now automated with sophisticated cameras aiding the sorting into the various colours.
Posts
