Wot a Load of Rubbish

On the 30^th January we had to vacate our normal venue due to the Golf Club hosting a very large event.

We ended up at one of our previous venue the Hassocks Hotel when 34 sat down to Roast Chicken and Apple Crumble of Fresh Fruit Salad.

Our speaker was Colin McFarlin who is a Waste Prevention Advisor and he told us in no uncertain terms what we could recycle and what we couldn’t.

Unfortunately each county decides, through their waste management partners, what can be recycled and what cannot be so each area is different. West Sussex is the third highest recycling county with 47% of our rubbish being recycled and each district deciding on the colour of the various bins we have to use.

Recycling started in earnest when in 2004 Viridor was given a 29 year contract to remove our waste and build plants to sort out the good and the bad.

Contents of our recycling (Blue) bin goes to Ford where it is sorted and sold onto various companies who produce items that can be used again, newspapers can be recycled up to six times.

Contents of our land fill (Black) bin goes to a brand new plant in Horsham where it is sorted and the majority of what we believe to be rubbish is abstracted and put to good use elsewhere.

Contents of or garden waste (Green) bin goes to a depot in West Grinstead where it is once again sorted and put to good use by turning out such things as fertilizers etc.

Colin has offered to arrange a visit to the new site in Horsham which I believe would be an eye opener to us all.

All in all a very good evening with a good number of Rotarians and guests, good food, good speaker and a totally different venue from when we used to use it every week.