Last week our men’s Brew and Chat group visited the The Exeter City Council Materials Reclamation Facility (MRF), run by Exeter City Council at Marsh Barton. We were given a talk and tour by the manager Matt Hulland. Matt explained their recycling process and how this is one of the most advanced sites of it’s kind in the country.
The MRF takes in household recycling such as paper, tin, card, and plastic, along with paper bank collections and local trade waste, and separates it out using a mix of machinery and manual sorting. The sorting line uses optical sorters that use light to identify materials, metal detectors for steel and aluminium cans, near-infrared sensors to further separate plastics, and high-precision air jets that blow off plastic film and card. Contaminated or non-recyclable items like black plastic, polystyrene, and mixed-media plastic are filtered out and have no recyclable value. Sorted materials are baled and sent on to companies that turn them into new products and packaging, Matt showed us examples of many several recycled products, from chairs to Kayaks.
Below is a Youtube video of Matt giving a video tour of the site. We thank him for taking the time to show us around.