GASES produced by rubbish rotting in land fill sites are now being harvested as a fuel source, it was revealed last week during a presentation on recycling.
Robert McKay, from Durham County Council’s recycling team, lifted the lid on what can and can’t be recycled during a talk organised by Teesdale Action on Climate Change (TACT) at The Witham, in Barnard Castle.
Mr McKay helped dismiss some of the myths surrounding what happens to rubbish when it is taken away by bin lorries and also explained how the county’s rubbish is helping power the national grid.
Durham County Council collects about 240,000 tonnes of rubbish a year from households across the region and processes it at recycling plants.
Mr McKay said: “Once, this would have gone to land fill, but we haven’t done that for many years. Rubbish we call black waste that can’t be recycled is sent to an incinerator at Billingham. The incinerator is run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
“The waste is burnt to turn water to steam in order to power a turbine creating electricity that is fed back into the national grid.”
He explained the land fill sites in County Durham have been closed for some time and it is still necessary for them to be monitored for land slippages and gaseous emissions, both of which can be dangerous.
He added: “Some of the land fill sites have been mined for methane as an energy source.
“As far as recycling goes, plastics have got a bad name and it’s mainly down to single use ones, like bags and wrappings on turnips and chocolates and end up floating around the streets and fields and get into the sea.
“These need to go into general waste.
“But there are plastics that we can recycle like bottles, Tetra packs and cartons, as long as they are clean, which can be recycled into a variety of products such as window frames, park benches and bollards.”
He explained they were unable to recycle black plastic food containers as they couldn’t be detected by the infra-red rays on machinery designed to sort out rubbish.
“Single use plastics are the problem. We have a general rule of thumb that if you can scrunch it up in your hand then that needs to be in normal rubbish.”
Batteries should also not be put into recycling, or general waste, but disposed of at specialised depots.
He added: “We have a major issue with batteries. Some batteries have lithium in them and when they are crushed among the rubbish they can cause fires in the wagons.
“When our recycling policy was set up in County Durham we tried to create the simplest system. Some counties have five or six different bins for differing types of rubbish, including food waste, but rubbish is an expensive product to process.
“As far as food waste collection is concerned it is not something we have any plans to expand into. My suggestion is try to avoid throwing food out. I feed most of my scraps to my dog.”
Mr McKay explained one of the main difficulties in recycling in the UK is councils have differing policies.
He added a new labelling system will be coming into force later this year to help level the playing field of what is recyclable across the length and breadth of the county.
“The main message I would like to put out is when you are recycling is making sure the items are clean and not bagged up, but loose in the bins provided,” he added.
