07 Jun Southwark’s impressive Waste and Recycling Facility

What happens to the contents of our bins once the bin lorry drives away?  To answer that, a BermondseyStreet.London committee colleague joined a tour of Southwark’s Integrated Waste Management Facility, operated by Veolia. It handles almost all Southwark’s household waste. The mixed recycling is sorted through a maze of conveyors, screens, magnets, optical scanners, and a new AI robot, to separate paper, cardboard, plastics, metals and glass for reprocessing. Alongside all the technology, staff are still needed to remove troublesome items such as plastic bags, plastic film and textiles which, if they become tangled in the equipment, can cause the whole system to grind to a halt.

The tour highlighted some encouraging circular solutions: food waste is converted through anaerobic digestion into renewable energy and fertiliser; plastic milk bottles can be recycled into new milk bottles; glass bottles and jars are processed into fibreglass insulation. Materials that cannot be recycled are used at another site to generate electricity and heat for local homes.

As a result, less than 1% of Southwark’s waste ends up in landfill, a remarkable achievement. If you would like to go on a tour of the facility, highly recommended by our reporter, you can book here (Southwark residents only). The next two tour dates are Tuesday 7 July and 4 August.