Can automatic recycling remove waste without contamination?

One of the inconvenient truths about recycling is that it is a labor-intensive operation. Homeowners have to separate their recycled trash from their regular trash. Then, at the recycling center, more often than not, human beings have to sort out paper, cardboard, plastics (of various kinds) and so on.

According to the Indianapolis Business Journal, Indianapolis is having a go at building a recycling plant that sorts recycled material automatically. The idea is that homeowners will no longer have to sort their recycled trash from their regular trash. The plant would do that task automatically. The cardboard, plastic, paper, and so on would be diverted, and the rest of the trash would go to an incinerator.

A number of controversies surround the building of the plant, being undertaken by a company called Covanta. Much of the controversy surrounds the bidding process, which is said to have circumnavigated a public bidding process. But much of the objection to the plant stems from fears that the technology that automatically sorts the recycled trash is not mature enough.

The way the system is supposed to work is that it uses a recycling innovation involving an optical scanner detects what is recyclable trash and what is not and separates the former from the latter. The process is transparent to homeowners, who would throw all of their trash into one bin without having to sort it. The advantage of the system is that recycling compliance goes up to 100 percent with no added effort.

The problem, as some see it, is that the system does not prevent contamination of recycled trash from such things as disposable diapers and cat litter. The contamination problem seems to have cropped up in other communities where the technology has been tried.

Nevertheless, unless something happens in the Indiana State Legislature, where the permit has to be approved, or in the courts, where lawsuits are pending, it looks like the recycling plant is going forward.