WITH changes to our domestic waste collections just around the corner, I found myself wondering what actually happens to all that stuff once we’ve conveniently got rid of it.

Wiltshire Council’s website is the place to find out.

Under the heading "Rubbish and recycling" you can check out "Where does my rubbish go?" and download the county’s "End User Register" for the last year.

Maybe I’m biased (I definitely am!) but I was delighted to read that all our paper is recycled in Britain for newsprint. Buy more newspapers, that’s what I say! Keep journalists in work!

Cardboard, on the other hand, is re-used in the packaging industry at home and abroad, some of it ending up in China.

Glass and tin cans are reprocessed here in the UK.

Plastics are, as you will have suspected, more complicated.

Given all the horror stories about plastic waste being dumped on poorer nations or left floating around the oceans for decades I was slightly surprised that so much of ours is reprocessed here at home, although 2,010 tonnes of plastic bottles were still exported to a mystery destination simply described as “Global”, as were another 320 tonnes of mixed plastics.

Tyres – I had no idea – can be shredded and turned into “equestrian surfaces”. I suppose they must be relatively soft to fall onto, if your horseriding prowess is anything like mine (long since abandoned).

Anyway, the recycling process from the householder’s point of view will become slightly easier shortly, when we can chuck our tin cans and cooking foil in the blue bin, leaving only glass and textiles in black boxes.

However, the council does stress that anything that’s had food or drink in it will need to be washed as well as squashed to prevent contamination of the paper and card sitting alongside it.

Presumably your old Salisbury Journal won’t be of any use to the recycling contractors if tomato sauce left in an unwashed baked bean tin has dribbled all over it.

Yuck! And good luck to whoever has to sort all that lot out!

And now I’m hoping someone can help me with a recycling query.

Today I received a parcel (plastic wrapped) of socks. What an exciting life I lead.

Although we all need to support our city centre, I do like to buy things from this particular supplier online because they will donate a percentage of the price to my favourite small charity via the easyfundraising website, which you can install on your computer very simply to support your chosen good cause at no cost to yourself.

Each of the four pairs inside was wrapped in its own individual plastic bag.

All of this packaging proclaimed itself to be sustainably produced and recyclable.

I know supermarkets will recycle carrier bags. However, I haven’t found anything online to tell me where I can recycle thin plastic wrapping such as this, and I would be grateful if any reader could tell me.

anneriddle36@gmail.com