Visit to a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF)
One day's rubbish!
By Kalina Palka
In May 2012 I joined an intrepid band of greenies under the guidance of Susan Sheehan, Green Community Champions Officer at Lambeth Council, to visit the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF – pronounced ‘murf’) at Smugglers Way in Wandsworth.
It's located within a vast waste management complex operated on behalf of Western Riverside Waste Authority, which manages waste collected by Wandsworth, Lambeth, Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea. Residents of these four boroughs are issued with orange bags for recyclables (plastic bottles, paper, cardboard, cans and glass) and black bags for non-recyclables.
TRANSFER STATION
The non-recyclables are taken to the ‘Transfer Station’ on the Smugglers Way site, where they are compacted and sent up-river by barge to an ‘Energy from Waste’ plant at Belvedere in Bexley. There they are incinerated to create heat and electricity which is exported into the grid. Unfortunately, the amount of waste produced exceeds the plant’s capacity, and the excess is sent to landfill.
MRF
The recyclables are sent to the MRF, where machines rip open the plastic bags and the contents are sorted into different types. Some ‘hand-picking’ is done to separate plastic bags, items that can’t be recycled there (eg textiles) and anything contaminated by food (which gums up the machines). Our guide stressed the necessity of cleaning food containers thoroughly. Rejected items are treated as non-recyclable.
Mechanical separators sort the materials by size, weight and shape. A large rotating sieve separates lighter materials from heavier. Magnets are used to pick out steel cans. Aluminium is separated by ‘eddy current separators’, which repel non-ferrous metals. Infrared is used to differentiate between sorts of plastics, which are segregated into separate streams.
The materials shake, rattle and roll around on conveyor belts until they are sorted, then are dropped off into collection bays where they are compacted into bales. These are then sold to companies that take them away to be recycled (MRFs are sorting facilities only – they don’t do the recycling themselves).
This MRF opened in November and uses the most recent technology. It’s sophisticated, but still not an exact science: our guide told us that small objects often get separated into the wrong category, and he particularly warned us not to recycle plastic milk bottle tops (he also said not to leave them on the bottle as this can be dangerous). We saw finished bales of paper with wisps of plastic bag sticking out from them (see close-up pic) – but at levels acceptable to the companies that process them.
In May 2012 I joined an intrepid band of greenies under the guidance of Susan Sheehan, Green Community Champions Officer at Lambeth Council, to visit the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF – pronounced ‘murf’) at Smugglers Way in Wandsworth.
It's located within a vast waste management complex operated on behalf of Western Riverside Waste Authority, which manages waste collected by Wandsworth, Lambeth, Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea. Residents of these four boroughs are issued with orange bags for recyclables (plastic bottles, paper, cardboard, cans and glass) and black bags for non-recyclables.
TRANSFER STATION
The non-recyclables are taken to the ‘Transfer Station’ on the Smugglers Way site, where they are compacted and sent up-river by barge to an ‘Energy from Waste’ plant at Belvedere in Bexley. There they are incinerated to create heat and electricity which is exported into the grid. Unfortunately, the amount of waste produced exceeds the plant’s capacity, and the excess is sent to landfill.
MRF
The recyclables are sent to the MRF, where machines rip open the plastic bags and the contents are sorted into different types. Some ‘hand-picking’ is done to separate plastic bags, items that can’t be recycled there (eg textiles) and anything contaminated by food (which gums up the machines). Our guide stressed the necessity of cleaning food containers thoroughly. Rejected items are treated as non-recyclable.
Mechanical separators sort the materials by size, weight and shape. A large rotating sieve separates lighter materials from heavier. Magnets are used to pick out steel cans. Aluminium is separated by ‘eddy current separators’, which repel non-ferrous metals. Infrared is used to differentiate between sorts of plastics, which are segregated into separate streams.
The materials shake, rattle and roll around on conveyor belts until they are sorted, then are dropped off into collection bays where they are compacted into bales. These are then sold to companies that take them away to be recycled (MRFs are sorting facilities only – they don’t do the recycling themselves).
This MRF opened in November and uses the most recent technology. It’s sophisticated, but still not an exact science: our guide told us that small objects often get separated into the wrong category, and he particularly warned us not to recycle plastic milk bottle tops (he also said not to leave them on the bottle as this can be dangerous). We saw finished bales of paper with wisps of plastic bag sticking out from them (see close-up pic) – but at levels acceptable to the companies that process them.
Different boroughs have access to different facilities. This MRF sorts low-grade plastics such as yoghurt pots into ‘mixed plastics’ and sends them to be recycled. My borough, Bromley, sends them to be incinerated, saying: ‘This will continue until technology improves and the market demand for plastic increases.’ Hmm.
The MRF at Smugglers Way will process over 84,000 tonnes of dry recyclables a year. Our guide told us that 94% of recyclable waste brought to the MRF is recycled. But, depressingly, of the material brought to the whole of the Smugglers Way site, only 23% is recycled.
HOUSEHOLD WASTE RECYCLING CENTRE
At the Smugglers Way site there is also a Household Waste Recycling Centre (aka dump) where people bring their own waste. One of my fellow visitors said that (unlike my local dump in Bromley) it does not issue permits, so it seems that anyone can use it. It takes:
Batteries (lead acid, dry cell and rechargeable)
Books
Cans, tins and empty aerosols
CD and DVD players
Engine oil
Fluorescent tubes
Fridges and freezers
Gas bottles
Glass bottles and jars
Green waste
IT equipment (laptops, faxes, hard drives, monitors, printers, scanners, keyboards, mice)
Light bulbs (including energy-saving light bulbs)
Mobile phones
Paper and card
Plastic bottles
Rubble
Scrap metal
Small electrical items
Textiles
Televisions
Toner cartridges
Wood
VIDEO
There’s a video at http://www.wrwa.gov.uk/schools/school_resources/what_happens_to_my_recycling.aspx
Fast forward to 10min 50secs to see the activities at the Smugglers Way site.
The MRF at Smugglers Way will process over 84,000 tonnes of dry recyclables a year. Our guide told us that 94% of recyclable waste brought to the MRF is recycled. But, depressingly, of the material brought to the whole of the Smugglers Way site, only 23% is recycled.
HOUSEHOLD WASTE RECYCLING CENTRE
At the Smugglers Way site there is also a Household Waste Recycling Centre (aka dump) where people bring their own waste. One of my fellow visitors said that (unlike my local dump in Bromley) it does not issue permits, so it seems that anyone can use it. It takes:
Batteries (lead acid, dry cell and rechargeable)
Books
Cans, tins and empty aerosols
CD and DVD players
Engine oil
Fluorescent tubes
Fridges and freezers
Gas bottles
Glass bottles and jars
Green waste
IT equipment (laptops, faxes, hard drives, monitors, printers, scanners, keyboards, mice)
Light bulbs (including energy-saving light bulbs)
Mobile phones
Paper and card
Plastic bottles
Rubble
Scrap metal
Small electrical items
Textiles
Televisions
Toner cartridges
Wood
VIDEO
There’s a video at http://www.wrwa.gov.uk/schools/school_resources/what_happens_to_my_recycling.aspx
Fast forward to 10min 50secs to see the activities at the Smugglers Way site.
