Recycling Process to Recycling Center

Material is transported to the site by garbage trucks or pedestrians.

Truck is weighed for Material Weight

Material Is Unloaded

Excavator feeds material into Drumfeeder Conveyor Belt delivers the material to the first sorting station: By Hand

Tipping Floor

Educational Pathway

Electronics, Toys, and Hazarous Materials

Recycling Center

Automatic Sifting Glass is often crushed during the delivery and sorting process. Sifters separate glass from the rest.

Rubber Stars Spinning stars separate cardboard from the line.

Screen Sorting

Heavy material falls to a lower conveyer

Paper is sorted out by screens

Can Identification

Plastic Sorting

ByBlock

Tin Containers Continue through the Process

Cans are identified by a laser system and sorted Aluminum is magnetically drawn down.

Cleaning Plastics

Washing

Crushing PP, PET, PS, Acr

Chipping

Drying

Delivered after the Recycling Process

Load into Blocker

Steam and Pressure fuse plastics together to form the CMU Alternative

The recycling process is a compact and contained process. To better understand the process, I extracted the compact recycling process into a linear diagram for my colleagues, advisors, and myself. After working with the diagram, I realized that this was easy to understand and that a building could be developed from this linear form.

Reading from Left to Right: The BROWN box would become the Tipping Floor, handling material delivery to the Recycling Center. Continuing through the process, and the longest form, is the Recycling Center, outlined in GREEN.

Plastic has two routes to follow at the end of the recycling process. One of the routes is for the plastic to be washed, crushed, chipped, dried, and then baled and potentially used at a different material recovery facility. The alternative route is for the plastic to be used in the new ByBlock Production Facility. This facility can take in all types of plastic and use them to create a CMU alternative. Converting 22 pounds of plastic to 22 pounds of building material alternative. This building is outlined in YELLOW.

The bottom of the diagram shows the material sorted out during the process. This area will become the storage yard adjacent to the recycling center, outlined in GRAY.

To break up the linear form, the Educational Pathway will wind throughout the recycling center, in light GREEN.