Right On Recycling

Sara Whatley
May 13
5 min read

Ever wondered what happens to your recycling when you wave off the bin men? Sara Whatley found out from Advanced Volunteer Waste Prevention Advisor, Colin McFarlin

Back in 2012 Colin McFarlin had ‘no clue’ how recycling worked. But then he stopped at a West Sussex County Council stall one day and the rest, as they say, is history. “I learned more about recycling during those five minutes than I ever had done before,” he said. “Then I made the mistake of saying I had time to volunteer...”

Colin McFarlin is an Advanced Volunteer Waste Prevention Advisor for West Sussex County Council, a role he delivers with pride and enthusiasm.

To get the role Colin had to undergo an interview process in Chichester and then a year’s course at Brighton University online. “It educated us about recycling and the processes used around the world, it was very interesting,” said Colin. Thereafter Colin was promoted to ‘Advanced’as more Volunteer Waste Prevention Advisors were recruited to join the programme.

“I have always hated litter,” admitted Colin, which was one of the reasons that sparked his initial interest in finding out more about recycling. “I find it fascinating for two reasons; the research side of things – how does that work? And I enjoy presenting to crowds and doing talks. It keeps me physically and mentally active, and I’ve always said, ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it’.”

Colin receives many requests for talks from groups including theWI, Brownies, Guides, Scouts, Rotary, schools and many more, and does a presentation about once a week. “In 2024, I spoke to 1,464 residents at events, and the previous year it was similar. I tailor each talk for the audience; fun and chatty for children, and a power point presentation for adults, allowing plenty of time for everyone to ask questions at the end.”

Some residents of Sussex may have noticed that East and West allow different items in their collections. Colin took me back to the beginning of recycling to understand why this is. “Over 100 years ago there became a need for public health officers as the streets were full of rubbish and there was much disease, ill health and death. Liverpool was one of the first places to have the Public Health Act, which stated that bins should be emptied once a week.

It was all well and good the government saying this, but how to implement it? A man on a horse delivered the news to the various county councils that it was now their responsibility to make these collections, and so it gradually grew to a weekly collection of the household’s metal bin.

“In 2000 recycling collections started and again, this was the responsibility of each county council, and so the district council and county council decided what they would collect based on what households in their area threw away. You can imagine recycling is very different in London and Cornwall. However, recently the government passed an act stating that soon every council will collect the same recycling, with an activation date of March 2026,” said Colin. He informed me that he is somewhat sceptical this will happen so soon, as the amount of organisation and cost of implementing it will be huge. “It will take time, but it will get there eventually.”

We return to talking about the nitty gritty of the recycling process; what actually happens to our recycling when it is collected from our bins early in the morning? “When the bin lorry is full it goes to a transfer station and empties out, then back out to collect more. This is the part. the District Council organises.

Then the County Council takes over the organisation: the recyclingis taken to a Materials Recycling Facility – “it’s as big as a premiership football stadium” – and is loaded onto a conveyer belt which goes into a huge rotating drum. “The glass sticks to the sides, falls, breaks, then falls through small holes and is collected. The paper and card stick to the sides as well and are removed at the end. Metal cans are picked up by a huge magnet, and aluminium cans are repelled off the conveyor by an eddy current. Then you are left with the plastics. An optical recorder shines light over the top of the plastic and recognises the different opacities, then blows each off with a puff of air into the correct bucket.” As Colin explained the process there was an obvious appreciation in his voice; he clearly still finds it as fascinating as he did 13 years ago.

Once sorted the recycling is bundled up and sold – “recycling is reselling,” said Colin. In a metre cubed bundle of plastic bottles there are about 8000 bottles. Some are sold to local companies, such as Ribena, who melt them down into new bottles. Some recycling is not collected by the council, such as soft plastics, which can be recycled at your local supermarket. They started to recycle soft plastics due to a tax charge on their packaging, so a way around this was to collect the soft plastics back, recycle them and state on their packaging that it is made from at least 30% recycled plastic.

Other items that do not get recycled by the council are plastic bags. “Some people diligently sort their recycling into plastic bags and tie the top, but these get rejected. The rejection rate is about 8% in West Sussex. Rejected recycling goes to another plant to be sorted and about 4% ends up in landfill.”

There are local companies that specialise in recycling your home or commercial waste, ensuring secure and safe disposal of items. This could be paperwork containing private or sensitive information for shredding or technical items such as computers and phones for confidential data destruction. In fact, some entrepreneurial types are

recognising gaps in the market and turning recycling into their own business. A student from the northeast started to collect waste ground coffee from coffee shops, drying it and turning it into coffee logs to burn. Now his business turns over millions. “We’ve got to continue to find ways to reduce our waste,” said Colin.

With a very active Facebook group called ‘Colin Waste Prevention Advisor’ and his willingness to share everything he knows about recycling in an interesting and informative manner, Colin’s mission is to make us all better recyclers. “Have you learned something new?” he asked me as our chat drew to a close. “Then I’ve done my job,” he said.