What happens to general waste?
General waste are items and rubbish from homes and businesses that can't yet be recycled.
In the past general waste was typically sent to a landfill site and in some areas across the UK it is still handled in this way. But there are now new ways to extract and recover the value from the waste material by turning it into energy.
What happens to my general waste?
After your general waste bin is collected from the kerbside by the Borough and District Council's it is taken to Veolia for disposal.
Most people in Nottinghamshire think that their general waste ends up in landfill. But instead 95% of the time General waste in Nottinghamshire is sent to an Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) and used to make electricity.
Once the waste has arrived at the Energy Recovery Facility, it is unloaded at the tipping hall. The general waste is then fed into the furnace which creates heat. This heat is used to boil water to make steam which spin turbines. The turbines are connected to generators which make electricity.