Waste Recycling and Collection

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Yellow Trash Container: Plastics and Containers

  • Plastic: hygiene and cleaning products, tubs, trays, wrappers and bags.
  • Metal: cans, aluminum trays, aerosols, deodorant cans, metal lids and caps.
  • Briks of milk, juices, soups, etc.

It seems logical to assume that all objects that are made of plastic and no longer serve us, go to the yellow container, but it is not always the case. The following should not be disposed of: plastic toys, baby bottles and pacifiers, plastic cutlery or plastic buckets, which should go into the waste garbage can.

Did you know that 6 briks can be used to make a shoebox, 40 plastic bottles can become a fleece or 80 soda cans can become a bicycle tire? Also, 8 canning jars can have a second life as a cooking pot, 22 plastic bottles can become a T-shirt and 550 cans can become a chair.

Blue Trash Container: Paper and Cardboard

Paper and Cardboard Boxes: food packaging, footwear, frozen products, wrapping paper, everyday paper, etc.

And what are the improper wastes in this container? The most common mistakes are with the brik, which always goes in the yellow container, as it is composed of cardboard, plastic and aluminum. In addition, daily waste such as kitchen napkins or dirty paper should go with the rest of the organic waste to the brown container, as many of them contain oil and this makes it impossible to treat the material. Diapers should also go with the organic waste.

These containers are taken to recovery plants where they are cleaned, sorted according to paper types and pressed into bales of standardized dimensions and weight. Once ready, they are transported to a paper mill, where they are transformed into reels of new paper, which will be made into shoeboxes, cereal, foil, newspaper...

Did you know that 8 cereal boxes can make a book?

Green Waste Container: Glass

Glass bottles: wine, champagne or spirits.
Glass bottles: perfume, cologne or similar.
Food jars: marmalade, preserves, vegetables, etc.

It is very important to differentiate glass from crystal! To the green should only go to the glass. Some common mistakes are made when it is time to recycle light bulbs, mirrors, ashtrays, glasses and crockery, which should be taken to the clean point or to collection centers.

In addition, glass is one of those materials that can be recycled infinitely without losing any of its properties. After collection, it is taken to the treatment plant to be crushed and rid of impurities and then go to the packaging factory, where it will be given a new life.

Brown Trash Container: Organic

Food scraps: fruit skins, fish bones, plants, eggshells or grounds, used napkins and paper towels.

In 2017, the brown garbage can was released for the first time. Organic waste is no longer deposited in the conventional container, because the organic bin, now brown, and the gray waste bin are no longer the same thing.

Organic waste can be used to make compost or bio-waste that can be used as fertilizer and even as an energy generator. What should be deposited in the brown garbage can are:

Those that end up in this garbage can without being organic are ceramic objects, diapers, cigarette butts, chewing gum, wet wipes, pet litter, hair, dust, etc.

Gray Garbage Container: Fraction rest

  • Dust from vacuuming or sweeping.
  • Hair.
  • Compresses.
  • Diapers.
  • Cigarette butts.
  • Animal waste.
  • Used pens and pencils.
  • Cottons.

Fraction rest: waste generated in private homes, and those of domiciliary character from stores, offices and services, as well as all those that do not have the qualification of dangerous and are assimilable to domiciliary.

What not to throw in the gray container:

If we properly separate waste at home it is important to keep in mind what we should not throw in the gray container. Some examples of materials that should not go in this bin are:

Food scraps, infusion bags or paper with food waste, which should go in the brown garbage can.
Plastic containers or bricks, which belong in the yellow container.
Glass containers, which go in the green container.
Cardboard packaging and clean paper waste, which go in the blue bin.
Clothes, batteries or CDs, which should be placed in the green points of your city to be processed.

Red Garbage Container: Hazardous Waste

The red containers are used, above all in industry, they are very useful and one of those that avoid greater environmental pollution. They are indicated for storing hazardous waste such as insecticides, oils, aerosols and chemical products.

What is hazardous waste?

Hazardous wastes are all those wastes that appear in the List of Hazardous Wastes approved by RD 952/1997, regulation that develops the Law 20/1986, of Toxic and Hazardous Wastes, as well as the containers and packages that have contained them. Also those classified in this way by European regulations and international conventions to which Spain has subscribed.

Subsequently, the Spanish Ministry of the Environment published Order MAM/304/2002, which includes, among other aspects, the European Waste List (EWL), identified by a code which, in the case of hazardous waste, is accompanied by an asterisk.

This type of waste must be managed by an accredited waste manager, given the hazardousness and polluting potential of this type of waste:

Health care waste
Infectious agents
Resulting from the use of absorbents (PE and Organic).
Insecticides and aerosols.

In case of doubt, deposit the waste at the clean point.

In Inteco Astur we try to offer a comprehensive service where the customer is never alone in the process of selection and purchase of all the necessary elements to manage their waste properly, recycling as much as possible, so that we advise you on everything you may need. If we do not have the products you require, we look for them in other suppliers and even, in some cases, we manufacture them ourselves and also customize the products, for example designing signage and specific signage for your company.