The technological evolution of materials recycling
Today's guest blog is authored by Jon Smieja of the GreenBiz Group. The original post can be read here.
Have you been to a materials recovery facility (MRF)? I’ve had the pleasure of touring a couple, and the thing that sticks out about my experiences thus far is not the high-tech sorting machinery.
In fact, because I haven’t spent enough time in a MRF to fully comprehend all the material movements, I would best describe it as something akin to a Rube Goldberg machine. Materials seem to be moving in every direction, crisscrossing, dropping off cliffs and moving up belts. When you break it all down, I know that it is nothing like a Rube Goldberg machine, but that’s the first thought that still comes to mind for me.
Because of the massive amount of material that flows through the average MRF and the very real implications of missing valuable materials in the sorting process, a whole industry of innovators has popped up over the last decade…