Abstract: Individual machine tools are supplied with coolant by individual filtration units which separate metal chips from the coolant in order to provide a clean supply to the machine tool. A central vacuum unit is capable of sucking chips from all of the filtration units and delivering the chip to a central processing area for disposal or salvage. To enable chips of different metals to be separated and salvaged, the vacuum unit is capable of discharging its output to a selected one of a plurality of hoppers in the central processing area. In order to further increase the flexibility and salvageability of the overall system, a plurality of vacuum units may be associated with the filter units, with any given vacuum unit being operable to selectively serve any given filter unit and capable of being selectively served by any given hopper.