Greater Manchester Waste

did you know?


		Every year, 8 billion plastic bags are given away by supermarkets and shops. This is equivalent to over 130 bags for every person in the UK. These will take up to 450 years to degrade.

		A forest as big as Wales is needed every year to supply all the paper for the UK.

		The average person throws away 74kgs of organic waste a year, equivalent to 1077 banana skins.

		3.2 billion aluminium cans are still going into landfill (approximately 50,000 tonnes), equivalent to burying the Titanic every year.

Greater Manchester Waste Limited (GMW) is a company owned and controlled by the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority, handling over 1.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) each year.

Committed to providing integrated waste management solutions, GMW operates four materials recovery facilities which process over 45% of the MSW generated throughout the region. Separation and extraction techniques, developed in house, enable the recovery of steel and aluminium cans from the waste stream for recycling.

These plants are operating alongside the newly refurbished Bolton Thermal Recovery Facility, which produces energy from waste by recovering heat from the combustion process. 10 MW of electricity is generated for the national grid, equivalent to the energy needed to heat 7,000 homes.

Other facilities include 25 Household Waste Recycling Centres, managed by GMW, which receive recyclable materials including glass, cans, paper and green waste.

These techniques, in conjunction with other recycling initiatives, such as kerbside collection, drastically reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill for final disposal and conserve valuable natural resources.