Cae Post MRF visit

Around 18 volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters recently attended a wonderful recycling scheme on the Shropshire-Wales border to find out all about how waste can be recycled.  The Cae Post project in Trewern near Shrewsbury is a social enterprise which employs adults with learning difficulties to help sort through recycling.

The scheme which is a registered charity as well as a limited company is currently sub-contracted to Veolia to provide over a dozen public recycling skips for plastic bottles at a variety of community venues around Shropshire such as supermarkets and village halls.  The plastic bottles they collect get taken back to their Materials Recycling Centre (MRF) in Trewern to be sorted mechanically, magnetically and in part by hand into their different polymer types.

The mixed plastic bottles from Shropshire households are (along with plastic bottles, cans, paper and cardboard collected from rural parts of Montgomeryshire) passed over a complex series of conveyor belts.

Overhead magnets automatically remove the ferrous cans and the plastic bottles get sorted by trained staff based on the type of plastic they are made from.



It all creates worthwhile employment for people who would otherwise struggle to find employment whilst at the same time keeping waste out of landfill.  Of course it also creates a high quality end product, as seen here, huge bales of plastic bottles and cans which is no longer seen as a useless pile of waste but a resource material which can be sold on to industry.









All the volunteers were impressed by the staff and volunteers at this wonderful project.  A big thank you to them for their hospitality in facilitating our study tour.  For more information on Cae Post visit www.caepost.co.uk