Thread by @KirstiePecci

1/14 Before curbside cans, bottles, paper, cardboard, and plastic packaging are recycled, they need to be sorted. This can be a complicated process. For this week's #FacilityFriday thread, let's look at the role Material Recovery Facilities play in our recycling system. @CLF

2/14 A Material Recovery Facility or MRF (“murf”) is a facility that uses a combination of machines and manual labor to sort commingled recyclables like glass, aluminum, paper, cardboard, and plastic into separate streams. #FacilityFriday bit.ly/3x9sRr6

3/14 Importantly, MRFs don’t actually recycle any of the materials they process. Instead, they prepare the recyclables so that they can be sold to companies who will use them for manufacturing new products. #FacilityFriday

4/14 MRFs have become a central part of our recycling system as more and more towns and cities adopt single-stream recycling programs where all recyclables are thrown into a single bin and sorted later, but most of the materials sorted by them are not that clean. #FacilityFriday

5/14 MRFs have a near impossible job. They must remove all unrecyclable materials that make their way into the recycling stream while also processing and sorting the remaining commingled material into clean uncontaminated streams that companies want to purchase. #FacilityFriday

6/14 These sorting processes are flawed. Nationally, 25% of what is thrown into the single-stream recycling system is too contaminated to go anywhere other than a landfill or incinerator. And the sorted bales are pretty contaminated, too. 53eig.ht/3toflPg #FacilityFriday

7/14 This contamination can render otherwise recyclable material unrecyclable. It also can be the difference between something being recycled or downcycled. Downcycling is when a material is recycled to produce a new item of lesser quality. #FacilityFriday

8/14 Glass is unfortunately a great example. Glass is highly recyclable when clean and uncontaminated. However, when it isn’t properly managed, sorted, and separated, it loses value and often has no market which means it is landfilled or used for roadbeds. #FacilityFriday

9/14 There is no place to recycle most plastic. And items that are less than two inches around, or filmy plastics, like bags, don’t get sorted into bales at most MRFs. So straws, coffee cup lids, plastic bags, and plastics #3-7 are all usually trashed. #FacilityFriday

10/14 To make matters worse, a majority of MRFs are owned & operated by waste giants like Casella and Waste Management who have little financial incentive to properly manage and sort recyclables because when they are contaminated and landfilled, they still profit. #FacilityFriday

11/14 Thankfully, there are some MRFs dedicated to maximizing the amount of material recycled. Several of them created the Association of Mission Based Recyclers, a coalition of community-based nonprofit recycling operators. @AMBRecyclers #FacilityFriday ambr-recyclers.org

12/14 @AMBRecyclers formed to leverage their collective experience to push for regulations that will drive the largest and most impactful changes in recycling such as extended producer responsibility, recycled content, and bottle bills. #FacilityFriday bit.ly/3QeuZH8

13/14 What SHOULD you put in your curbside recycling? Aluminum, glass, #1 & #2 plastic containers, cardboard, and paper. And more sorting is always better for recycling – so #BottleBill containers are much more likely to be recycled. #FacilityFriday

14/14 What’s more, dual stream (separating paper and cardboard from containers) is better than single stream, and you should support systems and laws that push for consumers to SEPARATE, SEPARATE, SEPARATE at home! MRFs can only do so much! #FacilityFriday