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The Big Sort: An Insider’s Tour of a Recycling Plant

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Every day at the Sims Municipal Recycling facility in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, roughly 800 tons of recyclables meander through a tangle of machines, scanners, and conveyor belts. Mountains of discarded metals, glass, and plastic are sifted, sorted, and bundled into bails, eventually transforming into marketable commodities.

See how your recycling finds its way to reuse in this 2016 Macroscope video from Science Friday. The Big Sort: An Insider’s Tour of a Recycling Plant.

Next, see how this Japanese town is working to produce no trash. Plus: Mr. Trash Wheel, Baltimore’s Trash-Collecting Water Wheel, Plastic Bottle Village and Pass It On: Turning scraps into soccer balls for village children.

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