How Kerbside Recycling Sorting Actually Works
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Once a recycling truck collects kerbside bins, the mixed load is generally taken to a material recovery facility rather than sorted on the truck itself. There, a combination of machinery and, in many facilities, manual checks separates the mixed stream into distinct categories such as paper, glass, and different plastic types.
Modern facilities rely heavily on mechanical sorting: magnets pull out steel, eddy currents repel and separate aluminium, screens and air jets sort by size and weight, and optical scanners increasingly identify different plastics by their chemical signature, sorting them faster and more consistently than sorting entirely by hand ever could.
The sorted materials are then baled and sold to reprocessors who turn them into raw material for new products. The whole system depends on households putting the right materials in the bin in the first place, since contamination anywhere in this chain can slow the line or spoil an otherwise clean batch.