What are Material Recovery Facilites?

Material Recovery Facilities, otherwise known as MRFs are locations established in order to help clean, process and sort waste. Currently, MRFs rely on mechanical sorting (using physical attributes) to sort each item. For example, when the drum feeder loads on a batch of waste, an electrically charged magnet will be used to remove ferrous metals. Later in the process of sorting a glass crusher will be used to remove all glass from the line.

The goal of an MRF is to ensure that the maximum amount of waste that is recyclable is recycled, however not everything is recyclable. These non-recyclable can be anything from batteries to wet cardboard boxes, depending on the facility. The objects which are non-recyclable are known as contaminants and will often clog the machines when they go through them.

In order to have the most efficient MRF, one thing that must happen is trying to reduce the amount of contaminants to zero. The current and most common process of removing the maximum amount of contaminants is to have long assembly lines of humans hand the contaminants as they get brought by. With technology improving, this method has become outdated and obsolete.

There is a more efficient way to construct the layout of a MRF. This can be done through Implementing Robotics and Artificial Intelligence which will replace the use of humans.