Refuse containing stretched plastic is collected at each of a plurality of collection locations and is there comminuted and, before or after this comminution, is heated to a relaxation temperature of at least a portion of the stretched plastic thereby embrittling and reducing the volume of this portion. Then batches of the thus comminuted and at least partially embrittled and volume-reduced refuse are transported to a single treatment location. Here the batches of preprocessed refuse are mixed with each other and if desired with unprocessed refuse, and the mixture is sorted and comminuted again.