Road Sweepings Recycling

When the road sweepings arrive at the facility, it goes into a tipping area, which is capable of holding around 300 tonnes at a time.

Excess water is drained out and syphoned into a giant storage tank for treatment and reuse later in the process.

The waste passes under a giant magnet to ensure any metals, such as bottle tops or nails, are removed, before going through a log washer where giant teeth scrub and wash the material.

Larger aggregate materials are removed first (from 5mm to 40mm or larger) and stored by size in bunkers. Smaller particles remain in the water.

The smaller materials continue into the Hydrocyclone, where they go through a giant wash and spin cycle, which separates out organic material (such as leaves) and litter from sand and grit, which is less than 5mm in size. Once separated by size, materials are stored in bunkers.

The last of the waste water goes into a treatment facility where a polymer is added. This allows clean water to be separated from the coagulant solids.

Any sludge from the process goes into a centrifuge to remove as much water as possible, before forming a filter cake, which can be used in land restoration projects.

Litter is removed from organic material and sent to an Energy from Waste facility, where it is incinerated to create electricity.