Do you have colour-coded bins at home into which you place different items of rubbish for potential recycling? Most homes do, and their occupants are very good at separating any leftovers or unwanted items accordingly. However, sometimes those "unwanted" items can be overwhelming, which may be the case when you are in the middle of a complete home renovation, for example. In this case, urgency tends to take over, and all kinds of unsorted materials end up in your skip bin. Should you be self-conscious about this and feel that you haven't done your bit for environmental care?

Passing the Buck

The good news is that the company that supplies you with your skip bin hire is going to take the ball from you and run with it. When your bin is full, the company will not simply collect it and drive its content straight to the landfill. Quite the contrary, as the next stop will be a transfer station.

What Happens at This Station?

This is a halfway point operated by the waste industry in order to sort through your rubbish and recover as many materials as possible for onward distribution to the relevant recycling facility. The vast majority of what you put into your skip bin will be repurposed in this way, and only a small portion will actually make its way to the landfill.

Resource Recovery

The objective here is resource recovery, which is selectively extracting materials from those that have been disposed for specific use. The specific use can be recycling, where old glass goes back in the process to create new glass. It can be re-usage, where such glass is crushed and then is used as a component for creating a road surface. Thirdly, it can be transformational, which means that the material goes into a complex process to create energy.

Almost everything that you put into your skip bin can be recovered, from metals to cardboard to plastic. Your mattresses and old furniture can be broken down into so many different elements, as well.

Trained Staff

The transfer station is manned by specialist staff who will use certain types of equipment to go through a conveyor belt of waste. By the time the contents of your skip bin have reached the end of the conveyor belt, most of it will have been earmarked for reuse, transformation or recycling.

Choosing Carefully

Make sure that the skip bin provider you choose has a policy to take all of your collected waste directly to the community transfer station.