Does anyone here work at a recycling plant, or know someone who does?

[ProfessionalBullshitter]

I’m genuinely curious: does my household rubbish really get recycled? Or does it all end up in a container ship and gets dumped off the Ivory Coast?

I’ve always suspected the latter. Can anyone set me straight?

[BarbaraofSeville]

Paper - yes. There are several brown paper and cardboard packaging plants that use entirely waste paper and card as their raw material.

Many plastics do get recycled. Lots of things like garden furniture are made out of recycled plastic. I do consultancy work for some waste contractors and saw their stands at a recent conference. They were giving away branded bits and pieces like ice scrapers that were made out of the plastic that they collected up.

Metals cans and glass have long been recycled.

It's getting better and I think China no longer accepting plastic for 'recycling' has forced countries like the UK to think about the problem more, but recycling on it's own is not always the answer.

We need to look to reducing packaging and other single use items. There is simply no justification for things like junk mail and plasticy trimmy bits like balloon releases, decorations that are only used once, straws. Ban the lot .

Any that we do have must have a justified use that is not merely decorative or frivalous and be made out of material that is compostable or easy to recycle.