The Courier-Mail
By: Graham Readfearn
Putting the recycling bin out is a fortnightly ritual but what really happens to all those bottles, newspapers and plastics once they hit the green bin?
As part of The Courier-Mail's One Degree Challenge campaign, we followed a newspaper on its journey from a household bin to a new life.
According to the Australian Council of Recyclers, about 8.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gases are saved in Australia every year through recycling activities.
This is mainly because producing products from recycled materials requires much less energy than using virgin material.
1. Our copy of The Courier-Mail is picked up in a south Brisbane suburb by one of more than 50 SITA recycling trucks on the road each week.
2. Truck unloads at the Visy Materials Recovery Facility at Gibson Island. More than 1500 tonnes of Brisbane household recycling comes here each week.
3. Major contaminants such as plastic bags and clothes are removed by hand before the conveyor enters the recycling hall.
4. There it is! Plastics, glass and metals have been separated and our newspaper is travelling via conveyor to the paper mill next door.
5. We've lost the newspaper but it's in there somewhere as the giant hand of recycling picks up the sorted paper and cardboard.
6. Meet the hydra-pulper, which is just like an overgrown food mixer that churns the paper and adds recycled water to make pulp.
7. All the pulp goes into a huge paper-making machine to make one 14-tonne roll every 30 minutes.
8. The brown paper goes to the Visy Board box factory at the Gold Coast where it is layered and corrugated.
9. Who said today's news is tomorrow's chip wrapping? It's actually tomorrow's beer carton -- or any other kind of cardboard box.
Recycling facts
* Thin plastic -- such as shopping bags and wrapping -- should not go in your recycling bin. Supermarkets should have a recycling bin for plastic bags.
* In Brisbane, shredded paper, pizza boxes, aerosol cans and paper envelopes with windows all can go into your recycling bin.
* You do not have to spend hours removing staples from paper before you put them in the recycling bin.
* Electronic products made from plastic -- such as printers -- are known as e-waste and cannot go in your recycling bin.
* If plastic packaging is stiff it can go in the recycling bin, even if it does not have a recycling symbol.
* Plastic containers with residues of products in them -- such as shampoo bottles or tubes of moisturiser -- can still go in your recycling bin.