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Commercial recyclers operate at a scale too large to hire people to sort. They depend on automated sorting, which uses blown air and physics to separate items -
by stephengillie 11y ago
Commercial recyclers operate at a scale too large to hire people to sort. They depend on automated sorting, which uses blown air and physics to separate items - plastic flies higher than metal.
What doesn't go into one of the other slots gets sent to the landfill... Including most of the glass jars that you cleaned and sorted carefully.
- theoh 11y agoActually in some cases the equipment is more advanced. About 8 years ago I visited a mixed recycling facility in London which separated plastic bottles by computer vision triggering a precise air jet to launch each bottle into a different hopper. There was also a stage that used rollers to shatter glass bottles, though I don't remember the purpose of that.