Recycle – and then what?

How much of our mountains of shipped waste actually gets recycled or repurposed?

Sir, – Your weekend article on recycling waste (“You put the bins out, then what?”, February 17th) was informative and welcome, but on reading it was apparent that sorting of the waste is the only activity in the facilities highlighted. There was a reference to the fact that bales of the sorted material are “shipped to various parts of the world for repurposing”. For sure this is better than landfill, but not exactly a circular economy here. And if any unspecified products do get back to our shores, that involves two shipping costs to the environment.

I’m hoping you will do a follow-up article to tell us exactly where it all goes and how (and how much?) of our mountains of shipped waste actually gets recycled or repurposed. – Yours, etc,

M WORRALL,

Sandycove,

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Co Dublin.