Allerton Waste Recovery Park 2024

A visit to Allerton Waste Recovery Plant was a revelation - we could not have imagined how advanced the technology is for dealing with our humble “black bin” household waste. Allerton only processes North Yorkshire waste (and not recycling) but, rather than going to landfill, the waste goes through a complex conveyor belt system so that it can be “recovered”. Organic waste is diverted to a digestor (which produces gas) and recyclable waste is extracted to be sold on (as not all households recycle correctly). The remainder is incinerated to produce electricity.

Our guide challenged us to say what should be put in our recycling bin - and even the most devoted recyclers got some of that wrong! Amongst the dos and don’t were:

Do not recycle black plastic containers/pots-much plastic is recycled into new bottles/containers, which is good, but the companies who reuse it do not like black as it affects the colour of the recycled product.

Do put the metal lids back on glass bottles before recycling - if loose they are difficult for the recycling machinery to identify.

Don’t recycle paper that has plastic/foil/sparkles on it but don’t worry about removing the plastic windows from envelopes - they separate easily from the paper on the recycling process. But don’t recycle shop till receipts - they have some plastic in them.

We were guided through the plant, watching the conveyor belts was both fascinating and depressing. The amount of soft plastic packaging was striking - despite the fact that many supermarkets now have collection points where it can be recycled.

The sorting system (which includes infrared lights to detect plastic, and magnets to detect metal) handles 1000 tons of waste each day and once it has extracted organic matter/plastic and metals the remainder is burnt in the on-site furnace, generating 30 mega watts per hour of electricity, 365 days a year. Banks of computer screens monitor the temperature of the furnace, and the emissions, which are strictly controlled.

Final lessons from the day were that if in doubt it is better to put something in general waste (as it will be incinerated) than put it in recycling (where the wrong thing causes all sorts of problems), and also that (while we didn’t see any) there are plenty of rats at the plant - they hitch a lift in the rubbish.