Environment group Sustainable Swanage is organising a rubbish event for residents to learn more about what happens to household waste after it is collected from the kerbside.
Dorset Council’s recycling team leader Marten Gregory will be guest speaker at the meeting which is open to all, from 6.45 pm at The Focus Centre in the High Street, Swanage, on Wednesday 18th June 2025.
Dorset Council’s recycling team with Marten Gregory (third from left)
Recycling 60 percent of Dorset’s waste
More than 60 percent of all waste collected in the Dorset Council area is currently recycled, making it the number one unitary authority in England.
And almost all of the rest is taken to a mechanical biological treatment plant in Poole which, after extracting any recyclables and organic matter which has strayed into black bins, is then sent to be turned into energy at Refuse Derived Fuel plants.
It means that Swanage rubbish going straight to landfill sites has been reduced from 70 percent back in 2004, to less than two percent in 2025. But there is more that can be done.
Plenty of rubbish used to go to landfill
“Very little goes to landfill any longer”
Dorset Council’s recycling team leader Marten Gregory said:
“Only 20 years ago in Dorset, close on three quarters of all household waste was going straight to landfill, and today that figure is less than two percent.
“All the black bin rubbish gets pretreated now, anything organic gets taken out, all the recyclables get taken out and anything that is left afterwards is treated as waste to energy. Very little goes directly to landfill any more – basically just the few bulky items that the household recycling centres can’t process.
“But up to a third of black bin waste could actually be recycled – it makes up 47 percent of the overall waste total and costs up to £140 per tonne to deal with.
“Simply putting the right waste in the right bins could reduce the disposal costs by up to 14 percent – so despite being really good at recycling in Dorset, there’s a lot more we could do.”
The UPM recycling plant in North Wales, where Swanage’s recyclable waste ends up being sorted
Recycling waste goes to Wales
The presentation in Swanage will also shine a light on the journey of all the waste from recyling bins, to a processing plant in North Wales.
There, an automated and advanced process separates paper and card from other waste, before magnets are used to separate cans, followed by an optical sorting stage – where laser lights identify different plastic polymers and files them off to different collection points.
Almost everything that goes into recycling bins is now being made into new products, whether that’s milk cartons, glass bottles, aluminium cans or newspapers.
The New Earth Solutions plant in Poole is where black bin waste is pretreated
Any black bin waste which can’t be recycled is sent to the Iona Resource Recovery centre in Bridgwater where it is turned into power
“Dorset has very keen recyclers”
Marten Gregory said:
“We do these community talks to give people the opportunity to move away from the idea that waste is going straight to landfill. We reach around 800 people a year by talking with WIs, Rotary clubs, community groups and schools, but there is always an opportunity to do more.
“The two key messages we try to get across are to keep food waste away from the black bag waste, and to reduce contamination, when people put the wrong items in the wrong bins.
“Unlike some urban areas, Dorset has very keen recyclers, to the point where they are too enthusiastic and put too many plastic items in the recycling bin now, when it can’t actually be recycled.
“That’s why we have our right stuff, right bin campaign to highlight especially the issues around plastics – we just want plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays, not plastic bags, toys and the like.”
The newly established Swanage and Purbeck Repair Cafe at Herston Hall has been praised for its ‘brilliant role’ in helping to reuse items
“Repair cafes play a brilliant role”
Marten added:
“Our main aim is trying to reduce what goes into the rubbish bin by finding alternatives, which is why we are keen to work with community organisations like Planet Purbeck and Sustainable Swanage.
“We are limited to what we can collect at the kerbside and groups like Swanage and Purbeck Repair Cafe play an absolutely brilliant role.
“The waste hierarchy is reduce, reuse and recycle, and the repair cafes fill that middle ground of reuse, stopping things from going to waste and giving them a second life.”
There will also be local speakers at the Sustainable Swanage event to talk about what’s already happening in Swanage and Purbeck to help people make a positive difference on the war against waste.
Planet Purbeck Goes Wild at a recent mini beast hunt in Swanage
More environment events coming up…
Community group Planet Purbeck is also running a summer programme of events arranged for June and July 2025 to help local families connect with nature.
- Thursday, 19th June 2025, 6 pm and 7 pm, Puffin Walk at Dancing Ledge from Spyway Car Park, Langton Matravers
- Sunday, 29th June 2025, 9 am, Dinosaur Footprint Hunt from Spyway Car Park, Langton Matravers
- Wednesday, 2nd July 2025, 6 pm, Evening Family Picnic at Corfe Castle
- Thursday, 17th July 2025, 8:30 pm, Night Jar Adventure, a magical evening safari from Knoll Beach Car Park, Studland
All events are free to join, but places are limited, booking is required and it will be necessary to join a waiting list in some instances.
Planet Purbeck is also organising a Swanage Streams meeting.
- Thursday 26th June 2025, 7 pm to 8.30 pm at the Focus Centre, with guest speaker Nick Reed who will be talking about the history of the streams local to Swanage
Dorset Council is raising the profile of its Reduce, Reuse, Recycle campaign on the side of vehicles
Further information
- Explore more greener lifestyle initiatives on the Sustainable Swanage website
- More about Planet Purbeck’s events
- Join the Dorset Council war on food waste
