PEABODY – BEVERLY (Photos) MSO’s Marty Smith made the trip from Beverly to Peabody with the Beverly Senior Center tour of the Republic Services Recycling on Route One in Peabody. Members of the Beverly Senior Center took a tour of the facility yesterday.
The Republic facility in Peabody is able to recover around 87% of the total material brought to the site. The remaining waste is then hauled off site to other disposal locations. To work to reduce the amount of rejected weight at the MRFs across the state, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection developed a simple, standardized guide https://recyclesmartma.org/smart-recycling-guide/.
First picture- A truck unloads materials to be sorted. The site can process over 25 ton of materials per hour during a 14 hour 5 day work week.
Second picture – A look at the sorting machinery in this 50,000 square foot facility. The pile in the lower left is material screened out for being too contaminated, or not recyclable.
Third picture – After the paper and cardboard are removed, the remaining material is sorted into streams of glass, plastic and metal.
Fourth picture -at each step of the process, as the material goes by on a conveyor, staff is on the lookout for materials such as plastic bags, streamers, or wires that will foul the sorting machines and cause a shutdown. A shutdown can run for as many as several hours while the machines are cleared of entanglements.
Fifth picture – After a mechanized sort for the plastics, workers make a final inspection to pull out items that are not suited for recycling.
Sixth picture – after sorting and baling, the recyclables are staged along the back wall before being sold to the manufacturers and processors of goods such as glass bottles, paper, cardboard, and plastic bottles.
The Republic facility in Peabody is able to recover around 87% of the total material brought to the site. The remaining waste is then hauled off site to other disposal locations. To work to reduce the amount of rejected weight at the MRFs across the state, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection developed a simple, standardized guide https://recyclesmartma.org/smart-recycling-guide/.
