Most rubbish removal companies give you a satisfied feeling of watching their van disappear — but few explain what happens after that. We think transparency matters, so here's the full picture of where your waste goes after it leaves your property.
Step one: the van
Your waste is loaded into our van by our two-person crew. Heavier items go in first, softer items on top. We keep hazardous materials — batteries, fluorescent tubes, certain electricals — in a separate lockable section for specialist disposal. Nothing gets mixed that shouldn't be mixed.
Step two: the transfer station
Every load goes to a licensed waste transfer station. Transfer stations are licensed by the Environment Agency and regularly audited. They're not dumps: they're sophisticated sorting facilities.
At the station, waste is processed in three stages:
- Weighed — every collection has a tonnage record, which forms part of your waste transfer note
- Sorted into material streams: metals, timber, textiles, WEEE, inert material, and residual
- Compacted and batched for onward transport to specialist processors
Where it goes from there
Metals
Steel and aluminium are baled and sold to scrap metal processors, where they're melted down and turned into new steel or aluminium. One recycled aluminium can saves enough energy to run a television for three hours.
Timber and wood
Unpainted and untreated timber goes to biomass energy plants or is chipped for landscape use. MDF, chipboard and painted wood goes to specialist wood recyclers for further processing and particle board manufacture.
Furniture and textiles
Reusable items are passed to charity redistribution networks. A sofa in good condition doesn't get shredded — it goes to a clearing house that matches it with housing charities and social landlords who furnish homes for people in temporary accommodation.
Electricals (WEEE)
Fridges, washing machines, TVs and other electricals are processed under the WEEE Directive. Fridges have their refrigerant gas safely extracted before the body is shredded. TVs and monitors go to specialist processors who recover glass, metals, and plastics separately.
Garden waste
Green waste — hedge cuttings, grass, leaves, soft wood — goes to composting facilities. Most London green waste is composted to PAS 100 standard and sold back into agriculture and horticulture as a soil improver.
Residual waste
Whatever can't be recycled or composted goes to energy-from-waste plants, which generate electricity and heat for the grid. Very little, in a well-sorted load, ends up at landfill — our figure is under 3% across all collections.
The 97% figure
We say 97% of what we collect is diverted from landfill — that's the actual figure from our transfer station records, not a marketing estimate. It comes down to sorting carefully at every step: on the van, at the transfer station, and in how we choose and audit our downstream processors.
The waste transfer note
Every collection produces a waste transfer note — a legal document under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (Duty of Care) that records what waste you produced, how much, and who took responsibility for it. You receive this by email on the same day as the collection.
If you'd like the full destination log for a specific collection — not just the transfer note but the actual downstream processing routes — just email us. We keep records for three years and are happy to share them.