The End Destination of our Recyclables

5.10.00pm GMT Tue 12th Jan 2010

Ever wondered where Epsom & Ewell's recyclables end up? A comprehensive list of what happens to them is this week's recycling feature.

• Cooked food waste goes to Sittingbourne in Kent and is made into crop fertiliser

• Our cans go to either Birmingham or Townsend Hook in Kent and are made

into more cans

• Cardboard goes to either Croydon, Maidenhead or Sittingbourne and is re-pulped into large cardboard packaging

Batteries are subjected to metal recovery processes

• Batteries go to Darlaston in the West Midlands and are used for more batteries and processed for metal recovery

Glass makes more glass

• Glass goes to Southampton, Ellesmere Port or Harlow and is used for more bottles and jars

• Garden waste (from our brown bins) goes to either Basingstoke, Overton in Hampshire or Ifield in East Sussex and helps to make commercial compost

• Newspapers and magazines go to Aylesford Newsprint and make more newspaper

Plastic bottles go back into the plastics industry

• Plastic bottles go to Oakham in Rutland, are granulated and sold into the plastics industry for various uses

• The most interesting of the key products we recycle is what happens to the Tetrapaks which contain orange juice and liquids (the "bring" bins are at the Sainsbury site in Kiln Lane) : they to to Sweden via the tipping contractor Bywaters and make lining for plasterboard.

Do our recyclables travel too many miles before they are processed?

We are informed that none of our recycled goods end up in China and the only negative aspect of this kind of waste management is the huge number of miles the recyclables have to travel. Reprocessing locations much nearer would be much better.