Material Recovery Facility

Types of Material Recovery Facility

Single-Stream MRF:

This facility processes mixed recyclables collected from residential or commercial waste. The materials are sorted using advanced technologies and separated into different categories.

Dual-Stream MRF:

In this system, materials are pre-sorted into categories and separated before arriving at the MRF for further separation and processing. Both types of MRFs use a combination of manual and automated systems to achieve high levels of material recovery.

Steps Involved in Material Recovery

Reception:

Incoming waste is delivered onto a tipping floor. This waste comes directly from curbside collection or as mixed MSW from commercial or municipal sources.

Pre-Sorting:

This step involves manual labour or mechanical processes to ensure the safety and efficiency of the sorting line.

Screening:

In this step, Waste materials are moved through screening machines that separate materials by size.

Magnetic and Eddy Current Separation:

This step involves separating ferrous and non-ferrous materials with the eddy current separators.

Optical Sorting:

Advanced optical sorting technologies use sensors to identify and separate plastics, glass, and paper by their colour, composition, and material properties.

Air Classification:

This step is particularly important in ensuring that lightweight contaminants do not end up in the final recycled products.

Baling and Shipping:

After sorting, the recovered materials are compressed into bales or blocks for transportation.

Technologies in Ecostar's Modern MRF

Automated Conveyor Systems:

The automated conveyor belts continuously transport sorted materials to ensure smooth and continuous operations.

Trommels and Screens:

Rotating drums with holes and vibrating screens are used to separate waste materials by size.

Magnetic Separators:

Powerful magnets extract ferrous metals like iron and steel from the waste stream.

Eddy Current Separators:

These systems use electromagnetic induction to repel and recover non-ferrous metals such as aluminium.

Optical Sorters:

Optical sorters can detect different types of materials based on their chemical properties and sort them into different categories.

Air Classifiers:

Air classification systems use airflow to separate lighter materials from heavier ones.

Artificial Intelligence:

Nowadays, with the implications of artificial intelligence robotic separators are used to separate the dumped materials significantly reducing the time and manpower.