Where does my recycling go?

The hard work of Hounslow residents sorting their recyclables into the correct container or bin means that the recycling that we collect in Hounslow is deemed high quality. What you may not be aware of is that because our recycling is high quality, we are able to sell this onto processors instead of paying them to recycle this on our behalf. The revenue we make from selling our recycling is then reinvested back into services across the Council. Household waste is taken to an Energy from Waste plant where it is burnt to produce electricity and provide power, we are proud to say that we send no waste to landfill.

Have you ever wondered what happens to your recycling after you put it into your box or communal bin? 

Our collection team Recycle 360 collect recyclables from households across the Borough. This is then sorted at our state of the art materials handling facility, Southall Lane Depot. Here they sort the mixed dry recycling (plastic, cans, paper, glass etc.) collected across the Borough, tip each of these streams into their own bay and then process them to send onto processors. 

The following table shows the volume (tonnes) of Recyclate leaving Southall Lane in April 2023.

We are proud to say that 58.84% of our recycling was processed in England, this includes all streams listed above apart from Cardboard.  Our cardboard was processed both in the EU and Non-EU countries as the volume of cardboard produced and used in the UK far outweighs the UK’s ability to process this recycled cardboard.