Originally Posted by
rawresale
It probably sorts by mass as all of the pieces are the same size. Not sure if this is what it's doing, but for example aluminum and copper bits of the same size go down a shoot, the aluminum would not travel as far as the copper after leaving the shoot. Put one bin closer to collect the aluminum, and one farther to collect the copper.
It's actually fairly sophisticated, if you watch you can see magnetic separation that pulls some of the material as it falls enough so that it doesn't stick to the electromagnet, but it's pulled into a different bin and the material that isn't magnetic. Then there are blowers that separate by air, that blow the lighter material to separate from the heavier material into different bins. In this way ferrous is separated from non-ferrous and plastics, paper, insulation is separated from metals, etc. This is done over and over all through the system so that you end up with ferrous metals, non ferrous metals, plastics, papers, insulation, and different sizes.
I'm not sure of the cost, but I do know someone who owns similar equipment that cost him 2.7 mil for the entire line, and he's talking about putting in a second one. He has more material to process than he is capable of, and has several tons collecting each day in his yard.
When you consider that here in the US we currently recycle less than 20% of
e-waste, it seems like a great business to be in.
Scott
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