Recycling What is Single-Stream Recycling and What does it do?

What Is Recycling? According to Bing, Recycling means: “saving for reprocessing: the saving or collection of used or waste material for reprocessing”

What is Single-Stream Recycling ?

The Definition of Single-Stream Recycling is… According to Wikipedia “Single-Stream Recycling (also known as “Fully Co-mingled” or “Single-Sort”) refers to a system in which all paper fibers, plastics, metals, and other containers are mixed in a collection truck, instead of being sorted by the depositor into separate commodities, (IE: newspapers, plastic bottles, cans, paperboard, cardboard, glass, etc.) and handled separately throughout the collection process. ”

What Does That Mean To Us ? Basically that means that everything goes into one single bin. There is no need to separate the recyclables anymore.

What does This Have To Do With CNM? CNM has in all the classrooms right next to the trash cans and in the surrounding common areas, blue bins. They are single- stream recycling bins.

How Does Single-Stream Recycling Work? Under the Single-Stream Recycling system, all the recyclables go into a single bin which is then placed out in a separate container for collection by Waste Management.

The Process Of Single-Stream Recycling At the recycling plant, (also called the Material Recovery Facility) the recyclables are off loaded from the recycling truck…

The Process Of Single-Stream Recycling …From there the recyclable material are then loaded onto the conveyor belts to be separated and sorted.

How The Cans and Metals are Separated Once on the belt system the recyclables are moved around in response to certain stimuli: magnets lift off the iron-based metals from the belt….

What About The Paper and Cardboard.. …Then puffs of air blow paper from the belt while other heavier items like cardboard are sorted separately…

What Happens To The Rest Of It? …in the final stages the conveyor belt vibrates to clear the broken glass and the rest of the undesired items from the process.

What Part Do Humans Play In The Process… In addition to the process of sorting the recycling materials via conveyor belts and machines, humans also play a large part along the way catching what is missed ensuring a cleaner end product.

The End Result of The Recycling Process After everything has been separated, it is all packaged into bundles for sale to manufacturers for use in future items.

That is what Single-Stream Recycling is. Thank You.