Everything goes to landfill, doesn't it?

more than 95% of the recycling collected is recycled.  The remaining 5% is often not recycled because the wrong materials have been put out for collection or are too dirty to be reprocessed. The recycled material is used to make new products:

• All the newsprint (the paper for newspapers) manufactured in the UK is now made from 100% recycled
• The UK currently recycles around 50% of container glass (like bottles and jars). That’s doubled over the last 5 years
• Any glass product can use up to 80% recycled material
• It takes about 25 2-litre drinks bottles to make one adult size fleece jacket.

As well as the environmental benefits of recycling, there are financial incentives too – a growing number of companies such as those featured on www.recycledproducts.org.uk rely on recycled materials for their products and services. If everything really went to landfill, these companies wouldn’t exist!

It depends on the material and the way it is collected from your house. If it is not sorted into separate materials by your refuse collectors, your recycling will go to a materials recycling facility to be sorted. The sorted materials are sold to reprocessing companies who turn them back into raw materials; these are then used to make new products. Here's a peek into the world of waste recycling:

• Aluminium cans are shredded, melted down, and the molten aluminium poured into moulds to make ingots. These are then sold to companies who make new products such as car and plane parts, or maybe the can containing your next drink!
• Glass is crushed and added to the mix of raw materials that make up new glass containers. The materials are melted in a furnace, and then moulded or blown to make new bottles and jars. Glass is also used to make unusual stuff - it's an ingredient used to make new bricks and  a filtration media for swimming pools.
• Sorted plastics have a wide variety of uses and can be shredded, washed, melted and moulded into new products such as new bottles, garden furniture or fleece jackets.
• When paper gets to the recycled paper mill it is added to water and turned into pulp. It is screened, cleaned and where required, de-inked until it is suitable for making new paper products such as newsprint, cardboard, packaging, tissue and office items. It can take just seven days for a newspaper to go through the recycling process and be transformed into recycled newsprint which is used to make the majority of Britain's national daily newspapers.
• Steel is a brilliant product to recycle, as it can be reprocessed again and again. Steel cans are melted down in a furnace and combined with other raw materials like molten iron. The hot steel is then cast into solid slabs which can be rolled into foil to make new cans.