A Material Recycling Facility (MRF) is designed to recover a variety of materials from household and commercial waste streams to provide bespoke solutions for local authorities implementing kerbside recycling schemes, or companies introducing recycling to meet the requirements of the latest environmental legislation. Many MRF’s (also known as ‘materials reclamation facilities’) are individually designed, manufactured, and installed to suit the customer’s requirements by waste handling systems providers.
MRF solutions (pronounced ‘murf’) help reduce costs and benefit the environment by sorting waste into their constituent material parts such as paper, plastics, glass, and metal cans. These can then be crushed, baled, stored, or transported ready for recycling.
Specialised material recycling facilities can receive separated materials (known as ‘clean MRF’) or be a mixed-waste processing facility (MWPF or ‘dirty MRF’) which accepts mixed solid waste streams and then separates them out into designated recyclable material processing systems. These recyclable material streams, whether sorted at source in the case of clean MRF, or within a mixed-waste processing plant will be placed into single streams that include glass, ferrous metal, aluminum and other non-ferrous metals, plastics PET (polyethylene terephthalate), HDPE/PEHD (high-density polyethylene/polyethylene high-density) and paper-based waste products such as cardboard boxes, newspapers/magazines, and office paper etc.
The sorted recyclable material streams often undergo further processing to reduce mass and to minimise cost and improve logistics and handling. Balers, compactors, and industrial shredders can reduce storage space, transportation costs and help prepare materials for recycling which in turn enables them to be marketed to an end-user manufacturer.
Material recycling facilities plant equipment includes:
- Industrial shredders and hoggers for wood, paper, cardboard etc.
- Conveyor systems, including automatic mechanical, pneumatic feeding systems for compactors and shredders and in-floor conveyors
- Vertical and horizontal compactors for paper, cardboard, and municipal solid waste
- Bag openers, vibrating screens, trommels and magnetic sorters
- Baling presses for plastics, paper, and cardboard
- Balers for ferrous metals and small aluminium can crushers
Why are MRFs important
An MRF (or solid-waste management plant) plays a vital role in the process of recycling materials, with large urban populations producing immense quantities of waste it is essential that landfill is reduced, and valuable materials recovered and recycled from the waste stream. Modern MRFs play a vital role by reducing waste to landfill and the demand for unprocessed newly sourced raw materials. The facilities also allow for the efficient sorting and processing of materials from the waste stream that can then be sold to manufacturers as raw materials for new products.
To recap MRFs specialise in receiving, separating, and processing solid or dry recyclable materials. The technology within MRFs varies but the process separates the recyclable materials from the waste stream, into individual material types through a variety of mainly mechanical and some manual processes. Separation is achieved through a systematic process utilising technologies which can sort materials by their physical and chemical makeup using attributes such as; shape, size, weight, magnetism, and optical scanning, were possible the processes are automated, but some manual input (hand picking) is required, along with quality checking. The aim is to obtain the maximum recovery of valuable materials which can then re-enter the market as commodities in the manufacturing process.
The recyclable waste is typically separated into 6 basic material types:
- Plastic bottles and packaging
- Aluminium and steel cans
- Paper
- Cardboard
- Glass
- Other, non-recyclable residual material
Media contact @ Piranha
