17.09.26
This Recycle Week, J&B Recycling is joining organisations and communities across the UK in celebrating recycling and encouraging everyone to think about the part they can play in keeping valuable materials in use.
Recycle Week is the UK’s annual celebration of recycling, bringing together businesses, local authorities, retailers, brands and the public with a shared focus on improving recycling behaviours and making recycling part of everyday life.
For J&B Recycling, the week is particularly important.
Every year, we process hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste and recyclable materials through our facilities, including material collected from homes and businesses across the North of England.
This gives our teams a first-hand view of what happens after something is placed in a recycling bin – and why getting recycling right really does matter.
What happens to your recycling?
Recycling doesn’t end when the bin is collected. In many ways, that is where the process begins.
At our Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs), mixed recyclable materials are sorted and separated using a combination of specialist technology and our experienced team.
Different materials are identified, separated and prepared for onward processing, helping to turn waste back into a valuable resource.
The quality of the material entering the facility is important. Items placed in the wrong bin can contaminate otherwise recyclable material and make the sorting process more difficult.
That is why simple decisions at home and at work – from putting food waste in the correct container to keeping textiles, batteries and electrical items out of mixed recycling – can make a genuine difference.
Recycling is a shared responsibility
One of the things we value about Recycle Week is its ability to bring everyone involved in the recycling journey together.
Effective recycling relies on a chain of people and organisations: individuals making the right choice at the bin, businesses providing suitable recycling systems, collection teams keeping materials moving and recycling facilities sorting and processing what is collected.
When each part of that chain works well, more material can be recovered and returned to use.
For businesses, good waste management can also go beyond simply providing different bins. Understanding what waste is being generated, communicating clearly with employees and regularly reviewing recycling performance can help identify opportunities to reduce waste, improve segregation and potentially lower costs.
Taking the recycling message out and about
We’ve also been out and about during Recycle Week, spending Monday and Tuesday at Metrocentre in Gateshead to raise awareness of recycling and good waste management.
Working alongside our colleagues at Cumbria Waste Group and the Metrocentre team, we had the opportunity to speak to lots of shoppers, retailers and people working across the centre about recycling, waste segregation and what happens to materials after they are collected.
It was great to see so many people getting involved, asking questions and taking an interest in what happens to their waste.
Activities like this are an important part of Recycle Week for us. While our teams work with waste and recycling every day, engaging directly with people gives us an opportunity to explain why good waste management matters and how relatively small changes can help improve recycling.
A week to celebrate – and an opportunity to improve
At J&B Recycling, recycling is what we do every day, but Recycle Week provides an important opportunity to put the subject firmly in the spotlight.
It is a chance to celebrate the progress that has already been made, while recognising that there is always more we can do.
Whether you are recycling at home, managing waste within a small business or responsible for waste across a large organisation, the principle is the same: understand what you are throwing away, separate materials wherever possible and make sure they are placed in the right container.
Small changes, repeated across thousands of homes and businesses, can have a significant collective impact.
This Recycle Week, we’ll be sharing more about what happens to recycling once it leaves the bin, some of the common mistakes we see at our facilities and the simple steps we can all take to recycle better.
Find out more about J&B Recycling and how we can help your organisation reduce waste and recycle more by getting in touch with our team.
