Recycling after collection day

The bags are then loaded into a machine which tears open the green bags, before the waste then begins its journey on a labyrinth of conveyor belts, where it is then separated out.

Separating of the waste is done by a mixture of manual staff in ‘sorting cabins,’ and using the technology of the auto-sorter.

The material is then baled then sold on.

Plastic bags are not wasted either – as they are recycled into construction material such as foundations for gas membranes.

Cardiff council says 87 per cent of the waste which comes to the MRF gets recycled and sold on.

The remaining 13 per cent goes to the Viridor incinerator to burn alongside black bag waste.

The less contaminated the bales of waste are, the more valuable they are and the more money the council makes.

Milk bottles are currently being sold for £460 per tonne.

Aluminium cans are going for £1,000 per tonne, while grade one paper, which is of the highest quality, can be sold for £38 per tonne.

But poorer quality or contaminated paper, grade two, goes for much less at £7 per tonne. The simple answer is the auto-sorter does not separate glass.

Glass is currently smashed by a glass breaker, but it is heavily contaminated when it is collected at the end.

And it also damages the machinery at the MRF – which costs £150,000 per year to fix.

It currently costs the council £500,000 per year to process the glass and crush it to use as aggregate for road building.

That’s why a pilot scheme will see 17,000 homes across the city given new containers so that glass can be collected separately – which could then be sold on for a profit.

Councillor Michael Michael, Cardiff council’s cabinet member for clean streets, recycling and environment, left open the option of further separated collections in the future, depending on the market for recyclables. Cardiff’s current recycling and composting rate is 60 per cent – which is better than any core city in the UK.

But it still needs to improve – the council will need to recycle a further 20,000 tonnes of the city’s waste by 2025 to meet Welsh Government’s 70% target. Conservative councillor Mike Jones-Pritchard said: “We need to do more. We need to improve our recycling rates to get the products in the right place.

“We have to get the right materials in the right bags, or we’re just making these guys jobs (at the MRF) harder.”

The recycling rate for the city also has to increase by 64 per cent by 2020 or else the council could face hefty fines of £200 per tonne missed from target.

That means, if the council’s recycling rate stays as it is, it could face a fine as high of £10m by 2025.

That’s at a time when the council already needs to save £91m over the next three years alone.

Residents have already been warned of a council tax hike and declining services in the next budget.

Councillor Michael said he’s optimistic the targets can be met.

He said: “We’re the best core city in the UK for recycling. We have a really good story in this city because the public accept what we do.

“It’s about taking the public with us, showing them what we are doing with their waste. It’s a continuing process.”