Beyond The Curb

You know what goes into your Curb It! cart, but do you know where it goes once it leaves the curb?

Although it might seem obvious, your trash, recycling, and yard waste are all picked up by different trucks because each material has a different different final destination. Your recyclables are taken by the recycling truck to a Material Recover Facility (MRF).

When the material arrives at the MRF, it is unloaded from the truck and sent on its way on a conveyer belt so it can be sorted. We sort recyclables by materials, such as aluminum/tin, plastics, cardboard, mixed paper, and glass. While we have optical sorting by machinery involved, we also have staff whose job it is to pull the “no no” items from the line. On average, these staff have less than five seconds to eye an item on the line that shouldn’t be there and pull it from the rest of the recycling process for the trash. Because time is so limited here, this is why it’s so important for you to make sure you’re recycling the right things! This short amount of time is better spent double checking for some of those oops items rather than having to grab a frying pan or bagged recyclables – oh yeah, that’s important too, please keep your recyclables loose in your Curb It! cart.

Once the items are sorted by material, they are baled and sold to companies who recycle the material into new items.

Check out what some of your recyclables are destined to become below!