What happens to your recycling and rubbish
Where your waste and recycling goes
Your collected recycling is taken to UPM's Materials Recovery Facility at Shotton for sorting. It's easier to sort items that have been left loose.
Your waste and recycling is first collected by Ansa Environmental Services and is then taken to the state-of-the-art environmental hub in Middlewich for sorting.
Step inside Cheshire East’s Waste and Recycling at Ansa
Step inside Cheshire East's waste and recycling at ANSA transcript (PDF, 123KB)
How the UPM facility works
If you need a transcript of this video contact the waste and recycling service
How we compost your food and garden waste
Since January 2020 we have been taking your garden and food waste to a new composting plant in Leighton, near Crewe. The plant is operated by a contractor on behalf of Cheshire East Council.
Once the waste arrives at the site it is tipped off in a waste transfer hall and then loaded into special concrete tunnels for composting treatment. We monitor the temperatures to make sure that they are high enough to kill any pathogens that could otherwise spread or lead to diseases. The treated material is then placed in a maturation area for a few more weeks prior to being prepared for use in agriculture and horticulture.
Where your non-recyclable material goes
Energy from waste
The materials that cannot be recycled are processed at Energy from Waste facilities and used to create electricity which goes in to the National Grid.
Landfill site
We send less than 5% of our black bin waste to landfill, this goes to the Maw Green landfill site in Crewe. This waste mainly comes from the household waste recycling centres that are open every day of the week, including Sunday. We cannot process this material through our Environmental Hub in Middlewich because it is only open 6 days per week.