Abstract: A system is proposed for the treatment of essentially all the wastes arising in a community, and for recovering useable products therefrom, based on a combination of pre-sorting and mechanical and manual separation. Clean dry secondary organic wastes such as paper and textiles are separately baled for re-use, contaminated secondary organic wastes are prepared for re-use as fuel; primary organic waste such as wood and other vegetable matter is prepared, as appropriate, as fuel, as compost or for re-use as wood chips. Mixed wastes are separated by size and by density according to the ease of separation and the increased re-use potential of the separated as opposed to the mixed materials.