Abstract: An automated process for separating and recycling a broad mix of waste material including, but not limited to, paper and flexible plastics. A materials recovery facility (MRF) collects, presorts, and separates into individual commodities the material, then separates partially processed 2D blends from 3D containers, while refraining from any quality control of the 2D blends, and bales the 2D blends. A fiber center receives the bales from the MRF, aggregates the partially processed 2D blends, removes recyclable commodities including flexible plastics from the 2D blends, aggregates each recyclable commodity that is removed from the 2D blends, and forms separate commodity streams of clean paper and clean flexible plastics. Also provided are a related fiber center (and an infrastructure including the center) and at least one computer-readable non-transitory storage medium embodying software for performing the process.

Abstract: An automated process for separating and recycling a broad mix of waste material including, but not limited to, paper and flexible plastics. A materials recovery facility (MRF) collects, presorts, and separates into individual commodities the material, then separates partially processed 2D blends from 3D containers, while refraining from any quality control of the 2D blends, and bales the 2D blends. A fiber center receives the bales from the MRF, aggregates the partially processed 2D blends, removes recyclable commodities including flexible plastics from the 2D blends, aggregates each recyclable commodity that is removed from the 2D blends, and forms separate commodity streams of clean paper and clean flexible plastics. Also provided are a related fiber center (and an infrastructure including the center) and at least one computer-readable non-transitory storage medium embodying software for performing the process.

Abstract: An automated process for separating and recycling a broad mix of waste material including, but not limited to, paper and flexible plastics. A materials recovery facility (MRF) collects, presorts, and separates into individual commodities the material, then separates partially processed 2D blends from 3D containers, while refraining from any quality control of the 2D blends, and bales the 2D blends. A fiber center receives the bales from the MRF, aggregates the partially processed 2D blends, removes recyclable commodities including flexible plastics from the 2D blends, aggregates each recyclable commodity that is removed from the 2D blends, and forms separate commodity streams of clean paper and clean flexible plastics. Also provided are a related fiber center (and an infrastructure including the center) and at least one computer-readable non-transitory storage medium embodying software for performing the process.

Abstract: An integrated, automated process for separating and recycling a broad mix of plastic waste material including, without limitation, polyester and polyolefin streams. The process begins by collecting the material. The material is then pre-processed to remove contamination. Next, the material is coarsely shredded, resulting in ground material. The ground material is friction washed to remove further contaminants from the ground material and form cleaned ground material. The cleaned ground material is sink floated to further wash the clean ground material and separate it into polyolefin flakes and polyester remainder. The polyester remainder is dried, yielding polyester flakes. Finally, the polyester flakes are collected. The process eliminates the tradeoffs between recovery and purity that perplex recycling facilities and permits simultaneous handling of polyesters and polyolefins.

Abstract: An automated process for separating and recycling a broad mix of waste material including industrial and commercial streams. The process begins by collecting the broad mix of waste material. Optionally, the broad mix of waste material is sorted to remove contamination from the broad mix of waste material. Next, the broad mix of waste material is coarsely shredded. Plastic film is removed from the broad mix of waste material, creating a stream of plastic film and a separate stream of dirty cardboard. Residual plastic is separated from the cardboard stream and included either in the plastic stream or in an independent third stream. The process yields separate streams of a film-rich recycled plastic and a clean recycled cardboard having a purity of at least about 95%. Also provided are a related system and at least one computer-readable non-transitory storage medium embodying software for performing the process.