Design and Assessment of a Material Recycling Facility (MRF) in a Middle-Scale Residential Area

OpenAlex İngilizce

Mechanical separation of municipal waste is an efficient practice for increasing the quality of the recyclables in a concept of the circular economy. To maximise the quantity of recyclables and to produce the highest possible profits in the recyclables market, the separation of waste fractions could be conducted by a materials recycling facility (MRF). This study aims to design an MRF to process recyclable household waste produced in the district of Corlu, Tekirdag and to assess the efficiency of this facility. The proposed facility was designed to separate mixed green-bin-recyclable waste by particularly focusing on papers, textiles, cans and plastics. It was found that the compositional assay for many recyclables has a grade larger than 90%. However, the lowest grade is recorded for the mixed paper, as expected because of the nature of the product. It was also noted that the residue fraction consists of 61% of recyclable material, which means that the amount of waste sent to the landfill could be reduced significantly by improving the reprocessing of this residual fraction. Moreover, the recovery for the paper was found only 57%, which results in being put into the market as a product of lower quality and value.