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RECYCLING-OPERATIONS5 MIN READ

Use the hierarchy before you move the ton

Use the waste management hierarchy to choose the highest-value operational move before defaulting to collection, processing, or disposal.

The move: decide at the highest useful level of the hierarchy. The hierarchy asks you to solve the problem as far upstream as possible. In a recycling operation, that means the best move is not automatically another truck, another sorter, or another disposal code. It may be preventing the wrong material from entering the stream, changing a container layout, giving a generator a clearer accepted-materials list, or separating a reusable item before it becomes mixed waste. This is operationally useful because every downstream step multiplies cost. A bad item in a cart consumes cart capacity. On the truck it consumes…

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