Sims Municipal Recycling opens commingled container line at new Brooklyn MRF

Sims Metal Management Ltd.,  with corporate headquarters in New York City and Sydney, celebrated the official opening of its material recovery facility (MRF) in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, June 18, 2014. The event honored Sims and its partners for their work over the past 15 years to make the facility a reality, according to Van Dyk Recycling Solutions (VDRS), Stamford, Connecticut, a supplier of recycling equipment used at the facility.

Tom Outerbridge, general manager of Sims Municipal Recycling, and Bob Kelman, president of Sims’ North America Metals business unit, spoke about the success of the facility.

The MRF has the capacity to sort the curbside residential rigid plastics, metal, aluminum and glass collected from all five New York boroughs.

At the opening, guests toured the visitor’s center to see interactive displays and short videos about how each portion of the sorting system works.

The MRF features a Bollegraaf sorting system supplied by VDRS that is capable of processing 1,000 tons per day of bottles and cans and incorporating 16 TITECH Autosort 4 optical sorters. The line of optical sorters was introduced in 2013 and are designed to eliminate the need for lamps used on Autosort 3 models. The new optical sorters feature the company’s “Flying Beam” technology and can reportedly identify and sort 12 different recyclables.

Sims says the facility will assist in reaching the mayor’s goal of diverting 30 percent of the city’s waste from landfills. Most of the recyclables will be delivered by barge to reduce truck traffic. All material is debagged and the plastic film and paper is taken out with ballistic separators and separated by optical sorters.