Materials Recovery Facility

A Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) is a waste processing plant that receives mixed recyclable materials and sorts them into separate material streams for recycling. MRFs are critical infrastructure in the packaging recycling chain.

MRF operations typically include:

• Pre-sorting — removal of contaminants and oversized items
• Screening — separating materials by size using trommels and screens
• Magnetic separation — extracting steel packaging
• Eddy current separation — extracting aluminium
• Optical sorting (NIR) — identifying different plastic polymers
• Manual quality control — hand-picking to remove contaminants

MRF capability directly affects recyclability — packaging that cannot be identified or sorted by MRF technology is effectively non-recyclable regardless of the material. This is why factors like colour (black plastic is invisible to NIR sorters) and size (small items fall through screens) affect the RAM assessment. MRF performance also influences recycling rates and the quality of output materials.