After paper and cans have been removed from the mixed recycling materials, only glass and plastic containers are left.
To enable separation, the glass and plastic have to go into a crusher where:
- glass is broken into little pieces
- plastic is pierced and flattened.
Separating glass from plastic
The small pieces of crushed glass can now be easily separated from the plastic by the disc screen. Think of the disc screen as a sieve.
Metal discs mounted on shafts rotate, giving the plastic bottles and broken glass a bit of a shake. The smaller pieces of crushed glass fall easily through the gaps between the discs, and the plastic bottles run across the top onto a conveyor.
Before being stored in a bunker, the glass goes through a de-stoner, which removes small items that are not glass but have fallen through the gaps of the disc screen.
Previous stage: separating cans
Next stage: sorting paper