July 30, 2008 10:00 AM PDT
After passing another station, where the belt is leaning and a fan blows off plastics, the remaining mass passes under this belt magnet, which attracts metal cans and steel. The magnet machine rotates and the metals drop down on a separate conveyor belt.
Later, an optical sorting station separates the different plastics from each other, blowing polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles to one side, high-density polyethylenes (HDPE) to the other, and so on. There are seven different forms of plastics, and six of them can be recycled, explained Jewell. The exception is No. 6, which is Styrofoam.
Photo by Hanna Sistek/CNET News
Caption by Hanna Sistek
