Bristol Recycling Transfer Station

I think we all know by now that I don’t get out much!  OK I do a bit but I’m thinking that not only are you not interested in trips to the cinema, the Aerospace Museum, my brother’s birthday meal, LOTS of days at work (although in the last week I have attended the inaugural meeting of the Environment Working  Group AND met a Bristol Rugby player) and doctors appointments, they’re not really relevant to this blog.  So I’m sticking with ‘I don’t get out much’.

So our big day out last week was for a tour of the Bristol Waste Recycling Station.  It was brilliant!  Bristol Waste is a council-owned company which basically deals with all of the waste produced in Bristol by householders and other.

Bristol is, and always has been, a green city, at the forefront of ethical initiatives.  Already knowing this, even I was pleasantly surprised by some of things I saw and found out.

Anyone can book on one of these free tours here.  They also visit community groups and schools to give talks.  Our guide was Lydia.  She was so knowledgeable and very friendly.

Following a chat and video about safety on the site, each visitor is given steel-toecap boots, a hi-viz and ear protectors.  The ear protectors are only used for a very short time.

We partially sort our recycling into our kerbside boxes – we have green, black and brown (food).  It’s important that the correct items go into each box as the lorries are segmented and the individual types go in separate parts of the vehicle.  So keep all your paper together, the glass in one part of the box etc to save the crew members having to retrace their steps.

Having separated the items into the vehicle (the plastic, tins and cans all go in together so don’t worry about them)  each lorry travels around the site dropping of the relevant waste in the designated space.  These crews work extremely hard!  The processing then begins with each day’s recycling being dealt with on the same day.

NB  This is a completely different site from where the black bins go.  So if you put a drinks can  or a newspaper into black bin it is NOT going to be recycled.

I’m going to talk about what happens next in my following post.  I need my readers to be awake!!