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The waste company, SITA, is warning people in Cornwall not to become complacent about recycling.

In some parts of the county, an average of more than 30% of household waste is being recycled. That's close to the government target of one-third. But it's still well short of rates in some European countries.

Our reporter Chris Young went along to follow the recycling stages beginning with the kerb side collection. Click on the link below to hear his report:

Click below to see recycling in pictures:

Nearly 30 trucks and vans from SITA collect bags for recycling from across the Caradon and North Cornwall districts alone.

Recycling collection in Bodmin

At a depot on Bodmin's business park trucks have brought in more than 23,000 tons of recycling so far this year.ΜύPlastic and cans in clear bags, newspapers and magazines in blue, red for textiles and cardboard collected lose.

The team are busy all year round, but especially at Christmas time.

During the festive season we all produce a lot more waste and recycling than normal, whether it is wrapping paper and cards or Christmas trees and decorations.

Recycling in Cornwall

Recycling is not as simple as putting material in a kerbside box or recycling bank - that's just the first stage of the process. Recycling is a multi-stage industrial process.

Arranging the recycling goods

The mixed recyclable materials collected through the kerbside recycling collection scheme, or delivered to a Household Waste Recycling Centre, may be taken to a Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) where they are weighed, then sorted into type of material (paper, plastic etc) typically using a mixture of mechanical and manual methods.

They are then baled and bulked for onward transport to a reprocessing facility which, for example, might be a paper mill or a glass manufacturer.

The reprocessing facility needs to be specially adapted to handle this 'secondary' material which can be more variable in nature than virgin materials - usually it is not possible to just mix collected secondary materials and virgin materials in the same manufacturing process.

Once the material has been processed into new paper or glass, and delivered to shops, someone must buy it - only then has recycling taken place.

For lots of tips on recycling, visit our Planet Cornwall section on the link below: