Recycling Center: Online Tour

At the pre-sort station, workers remove non-recyclable items as trash (white arrows in picture). They also remove aluminum foil, paper, and large plastic containers for recycling.

Recyclables continue to move along on conveyers to various stations as follows:

1. Under an electromagnet, to remove steel, tin and bimetal cans, which are conveyed to a storage silo;

2. Onto a vibrating screen which catches small bits of broken glass that are too small to be sorted;

3. Through a trommel (a steel frame with a spinning screen) which catches bits of paper, broken glass, and bottle caps not previously captured. A magnet removes cans missed by the electromagnet in #1;

4. Into the Air Classifier and Cyclone which pushes the aluminum and plastic upwards by air currents and are separated from the air stream and go to Light Item Sorting. Heavier items (unbroken and large glass pieces) fall to the bottom.