What Actually Happens to Your Waste After We Collect It?

What Happens to Your Waste After We Collect It?

You book a clearance, we load the truck, and we drive away. But where does it all go? Most waste removal companies don't talk about this — and that's a problem. Because what happens after collection is the difference between responsible disposal and fly-tipping.

Here's exactly what we do with your waste, material by material.

Step 1: We Sort Everything

Unlike a skip — where everything gets mixed together — we separate your waste into single materials wherever possible. This happens partly on the truck as we load (keeping heavy items like rubble separate from lighter household waste) and partly at the sorting facility.

Why does this matter? Mixed waste is much harder and more expensive to recycle. A skip full of mixed stuff often ends up in landfill because it's not economically viable to sort it after the fact. By separating at source, we make sure as much as possible gets recycled.

Step 2: Each Material Goes to the Right Place

Here's where the different materials actually end up:

Paper and Cardboard

Taken to paper mills where it's pulped, cleaned and turned into new paper products. The UK has several active paper mills, and demand for recycled paper is strong.

Green Waste

All garden waste — grass cuttings, hedge trimmings, branches, leaves, soil — goes to a licensed composting facility on a farm in Essex. It's turned into compost and soil conditioner that goes back into agriculture. Nothing to landfill.

Metal

Scrap metal is one of the easiest materials to recycle and one of the most valuable. We separate ferrous metals (iron, steel) from non-ferrous (copper, aluminium, brass) and take them to scrap yards. Metal can be recycled indefinitely without losing quality.

Wood

Clean timber goes to wood recycling facilities where it's chipped and used as biomass fuel or turned into chipboard and animal bedding. Painted or treated wood is handled separately as it can't go through the same process.

Rubble and Hardcore

Bricks, concrete, tiles and stone are taken to specialist facilities where they're crushed and screened into recycled aggregate. This gets used as sub-base for roads, paths and foundations. It's one of the most straightforward materials to recycle.

Electrical Items (WEEE)

Fridges, washing machines, TVs, computers and other electrical items are covered by WEEE regulations (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment). They go to authorised treatment facilities where hazardous components are safely removed and the remaining materials — metals, plastics, glass — are recycled.

Fridges and freezers need special handling because they contain refrigerant gases that damage the ozone layer if released. These gases are professionally recovered before the unit is scrapped.

Mattresses

Mattresses are one of the trickiest items to dispose of. They're bulky, hard to compact, and made of mixed materials (springs, foam, fabric). Many end up in landfill, but specialist recycling facilities can now strip them down and recover the steel springs, felt, foam and fabric separately. We use facilities that recycle wherever possible.

General Household Waste

Items that can't be separated into a single material stream — mixed plastics, composite materials, contaminated items — go to a licensed waste transfer station. Here they're sorted again, with recyclable materials pulled out and the remainder sent for energy recovery (incineration that generates electricity) rather than landfill.

How Much Do We Actually Recycle?

We divert over 80% of the waste we collect from landfill. That includes materials sent for recycling, composting and energy recovery.

Could we do better? Yes — and we're always looking for new recycling partners and better separation methods. But 80% is significantly above the industry average, and it's a number we can back up with waste transfer notes.

Why It Matters Who You Hire

Here's the uncomfortable truth about the waste removal industry: not everyone does this properly.

A licensed waste carrier has a legal obligation to dispose of waste responsibly and to provide a waste transfer note (also called a duty of care note) for every collection. This note proves where your waste went and that it was handled legally.

An unlicensed operator — the "man with a van" offering suspiciously cheap prices on Facebook Marketplace — has no such obligation. And every year, thousands of tonnes of waste collected by unlicensed operators ends up fly-tipped in parks, alleyways and countryside.

If your waste is fly-tipped, **you** can be held liable — even if you paid someone to remove it. The fine is up to £50,000.

How to Check a Waste Carrier's Licence

It takes 30 seconds. Go to the Environment Agency's public register and search by company name or licence number:

Our licence number is **CBU506357**. We're registered as an Upper Tier Waste Carrier, which means we carry waste as a core part of our business (not just occasionally) and we're subject to regular compliance checks.

What's a Waste Transfer Note?

Every time we collect waste, we provide a waste transfer note. This is a legal document that records:

You should keep this for at least two years. It's your proof that you disposed of waste legally.

We provide waste transfer notes as standard — you don't need to ask.

The Bottom Line

When you hire Green City Waste, your waste doesn't just disappear. Every material is sorted, sent to the right facility, and handled according to environmental regulations. Over 80% is diverted from landfill through recycling, composting and energy recovery.

It costs us more to do it this way. We could dump everything in one place and save time and money. But we got into this business to do it properly — and that's what separates a licensed, responsible waste carrier from the alternative.

Get a Free Quote

Call us on 07309 718960 or send photos on WhatsApp. We cover Islington, Barnet, Hackney, Haringey and Camden with same-day and next-day collections available.

Licensed waste carrier CBU506357. 9.98/10 on Checkatrade. 100+ five-star reviews.