Plastic bottle recycling

This short film shows how plastic bottles are collected across the main campus and subsequently recycled - the University recycles around 1 tonne of these a week which is equivalent to around 2½ million bottles a year.

Plastic bottles are collected by House Services and Campus Cleansing staff and returned to the Environmental Services Depot before being collected by the University’s waste contractors (Veolia) and sent to Roydon Recycling in Swinton for recycling.

At Roydon’s plant they are processed in order to separate the main plastics types (HDPE, PET and PP*).

Roydon bale the PET stream and send this for further processing at their plant in South Wales where it is used to make a PET flake for use in new food packaging.

HDPE and PP is sent to various companies for further processing with some off the HDPE being re-processed to make new milk bottles and PP being re-processed to make items like plant pots or outdoor furniture.

Different collection arrangements are in place in the locations below where plastic bottles are collected in conjunction with cans and/or glass bottles as a mixed recyclate by the University's waste contractors Veolia. Watch a video of this process here.

  • Student's Union
  • Whitworth Art Gallery
  • The Firs botanical gardens
  • John Rylands Library Deansgate
  • CPU Fallowfield
  • Starbucks, Sackville Street
  • various kitchens/bars at University halls of residence

At University halls of residence, plastic bottles are also collected with cans and glass as a mixed recyclate, but in these instances they are collected by Biffa Ltd on behalf of Manchester City Council as these are classed as residential collections. See here for the recycling process for these collections.

*

  • PET: Polyethylene Terephthalate (type 2 plastic)
  • HDPE: High Density Polyethylene (type 1 plastic)
  • PP: Polypropylene (type 5 plastic)

See here for more information on the common types of plastic in use.