Materials Recovery Facility

A new ‘clean’ Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) will sort kerbside collected recyclable materials (cans, glass containers and plastic bottles) and will be located in Manchester at Longley Lane.

The MRF will receive, separate and prepare recyclable materials (recyclates) before sending them to be reprocessed into new materials. Recyclates, such as glass containers, plastic bottles, steel and aluminium cans, are collected from kerbside collections and transported to the MRF.

At the MRF the materials pass along a conveyor belt and various automatic technologies are used to separate the recyclates into their different material groups and subcategories, with minimal manual working required:
• Metals, such as aluminium and steel cans, are extracted by magnets or
repelled from the other materials using special eddy current separators;
• Plastic bottles are sorted into different types using a method of infrared identification; and
• Glass containers are extracted by sophisticated screening equipment.

After sorting, each recyclate is ‘baled’ − compressed, bound or bulked and stored ready for transfer to reprocessors.

Click here to find out more about our MRF.
Click here to find out what happens to your recycling.