When people sort their garbage by category and deposit it in containers in the street, trucks come by and empty them. The trucks take the material to treatment and recycling plants usually located on the city outskirts.

The trucks empty the residue into large holes that have been sealed underneath so nothing seeps into the soil. There, organic materials are separated from those which can be re-used. The organic material is placed in a sealed chamber so it ferments and transforms into fertilizer for agricultural use. This process is called composting.

In an average Spanish city of 400,000 people, around 200,000 tons of residues are processed each year. That yields more than 30,000 tons of organic fertilizer.

Recyclable waste
Once recyclable glass, paper and metal are sorted and classified (the metal is separated with huge magnets, the rest practically by hand) the waste is packaged and sent to companies that specialize in recycling. This is one of the reasons recycling is so costly and complex. Garbage does not go directly to center for treatmentm, composting and recycling.

Glass: deposited in green containers and can be turned into new bottles. But in this process new energy is consumed. Therefore it is better to use the bottles again, returning used ones to the place where you bought them.

Packaging: this is placed in the yellow containers. Plastic containers are recycled to make bags, urban furniture, traffic signs, detergent boxes ,etc. Cans can be recycled 100% and made into new cans. According to data from Ecoembes from 2002, 66 percent of homes separate plastic packages and 16% do so with objects made of this material; the number is 73% for Tetrabriks and 47% for cans.
 
Paper and cardboard: they go in the blue bin. Most paper can be recycled, except for self-copy paper used in offices, adhesive stickers and fax paper. Ecoembes (2002) says 90 percent is separated.

Batteries: Small batteries are the most dangerous: just one of them can pollute up to 600,000 liters of drinking water. Some 46% of regular batteries and so-called button batteries are placed in special bins (Ecoembes, 2002).

Did you know that?
-Each person generates more than a kilo of garbage per day. Ecoembes says a garbage bin contains the following:
        � Organic material: 44% 
        � Paper and cardboard: 21% 
        � Metal, plastic and tetrabrik containers: 15%
        � Textiles: 3% 
        � Glass: 7% 
        � Others (batteries, remains of plastic and metal, wood, rubber): 10% 

-In Spain, 70% of waste goes to landfills and only 11% is recycled. In Holanda, for instance, 30% is recycled.