TMAEG’s first outing on 7 March was a great success. 19 of us turned up at the Materials Recycling Facility in Old Wolverton not knowing quite what to expect.
Andy Hudson, Head of Environment and Waste at MK Council, gave us a presentation explaining the importance of the facility in processing the contents of our pink sacks and reclaiming so much waste material. The environment, energy use and our pockets all benefit.
We were also shown a short film of the highly mechanised process and then taken to see it all for ourselves. If you’d like to see the Recycling Facility film please click here.
Three of our party have posted their impressions below.
For more information on the MRF and useful links about waste and recycling in Milton Keynes, go to www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/recycling. A quarterly online newsletter is also available.
We hope to organise another tour of the MRF next year so, if you missed it this time, why not join us then?
Dorothy wrote … The joke of the week in our family was that I announced that “Pavla & Chris were taking me to the recycling plant next week!” I am pleased to say that they did bring me back. I thank Pavla and Chris for their splendid travel arrangements and especially to Chris, I am sure his arms are suffering after pushing me in my wheelchair along ramps, which always seemed to be sloping upwards. Before the trip, I had envisaged lines and lines of moving belts with lots of operators clad in protective clothing spaced at intervals sorting out the rubbish as it moved quickly along. In truth, I only spotted one worker high up looking out of a window onto the scene below. The whole scene looked like spaghetti junction with rubbish instead of cars and lorries.
We had a very interesting talk beforehand given by the “Boss”, I am sorry I have forgotten his correct title, and he was assisted by the hands-on chief of the operation. I apologise for not remembering their correct titles, however the information they imparted was very enlightening. Both had worked at the plant for many year. Lots of information on how the huge operation worked, what to recycle and how and what money could be made and ploughed back into the system by selling on a lot of the reclaimed material.
Future plans were that adjacent land was going to be utilised for the parking up of the vehicles, as they were so expensive to run (ate up fuel) and at present were stored in Bletchley.
Another interesting point was that Notices were in English and Polish, as all, or most of the workers were Polish. After the short tour we came back to the Education Room to have a closer look at various objects and toys which had all been made from recycled materials.
This is very much a laymen’s (woman’s) account, I am sure a lot more precise information will have been noted by one or more of our Group which numbered about 20. Many thanks to Pavla and Chris and TMAEG
Pat wrote… As a member of the TMAEG group, I visited the Materials Recycling Facility (MRF), one of the most modern in the country which processes 100,000 tonnes of rubbish annually.
We were shown a video about the MRF and could ask questions. We learned, for example, that aerosols (lids removed), textiles, shoes as well as aluminium and steel cans were among the items which could be put in pink sacks. There are now very few items that cannot be included in the recycling scheme and MK Council benefits from a sizeable income from the MRF, despite the fact that each collection lorry costs £155,000 and uses 1 gallon of diesel for every 2.5 miles!
From the education room, we began a tour of the facility.
A central computer controls the conveyor belts. We saw how ballistic separation sorted items according to size and weight, how overhead magnets remove steel and how laser optical sorting machines played their part in sorting plastic. At some stages the rubbish performed an almost magical dance along the belts as it was sorted.
The degree of automation is incredible and the noise level much lower than we had experienced on a visit many years ago.
We left with a better knowledge of recycling and ways in which every family can play its part in reducing the amount of rubbish sent to landfill sites.”
Rosina wrote… I and other TMAEG members attended the MK Recycling Centre in Wolverton on 7th March. Mr. A. Hudson provided information about the operations at the centre. Refuse disposal starts with the householders in Milton Keynes who are given red and black sacks. The red sacks are to contain recyclable items eg plastic bottles, yoghurt pots, paper, etc. The black sacks should contain non-recyclable items such as used cooking foil.
All items at the recycling centre are placed onto a moving belt to be transported and sorted further. One of the moving belts has magnets fitted above it attracting metal objects. The metal objects are seperated and collected together for removal. Paper and cardboard is also recycled, collected together and shredded. This is then able to be added to soil as compost material.
I noticed some imaginative use of ring pulls from drinks cans.
Mr Hudson provided detailed and interesting information about the recycling centre and I valued my visit.