Cork City Recycling Facility
Today we went to the Cork City Recycling Facility. For some reason I was picturing some hi-tech manufacturing plant where the sorting and processing actually took place however it was actually just a bigger version of a bottle bank and clothes drop off bins in supermarket parking lots.
Also surprising was how busy it was, there was car after car full of recycling to be sorted.
Sorting
We had done our washing and sorting before we went but only separated into 3 categories: plastics, tins and paper/cardboard/tetrapaks. When we got there it was segregated into more than that so took us a bit of time to separate out further...in a rain shower :(
To make this easier next time we will have the recycling sorted into:
Paper
Cardboard
Tetrapaks
Tins
Plastic Bottles (hopefully none)
Plastic Wrappers (hopefully none)
Glass (Brown, Clear, Green)
Drink cans (hopefully none)
In the new house we will get dedicated (hopefully small) bins for each.
Estimated Cost/Time Savings
With our current shopping practices we think we should be able to only go once every 3-4 months to drop off our recycling for the cost of 2€ per car load (that cost includes food waste - more info on their site here) - I'm not sure how much we'll be able to compost ourselves in the new house but estimating 25€/month for general refuse collection we should be able to save 15€/month by reducing waste and bringing what we do have to the site ourselves. Even if we go once a month that means we don't have to worry about bringing out the bins to the street each week (time savings).
Edit: Another zero-waste community member commented that if you bring your general refuse at 5€/bag the recycling is free. They bring a trailer with a couple of wheelie bins - one with paper and cardboard (in paper bags and cardboard boxes respectively), one with hard and soft plastics (in separate bags). Non-recyclables in 1 or 2 black plastic sacks, also in the trailer. The lower-volume stuff (glass, steel, aluminium, tetrapacks) in smaller crates inside the car.
We will likely put that money towards a better home composting system.
Photos of the site here for anyone that's interested
