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Look Inside New Fort Worth Recycling Center

FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Turning trash around is happening more quickly at a new recycling center in Fort Worth. But before anyone can head over there for a tour, or check out the facility's education center, CBS 11 News went inside to look around.

The safety glasses are on and the conveyor belts are running. The new center, at its highest point, will be able to process 500 tons of trash into recyclable material in just one day.

Republic Services division manager Duane McDonald described the facility's workflow. "The first thing we have is a pre-sort area, where we are removing bulky items from the line and anything that might interfere with the sorting process," he explained. "We have some air ducts that we can use to remove plastic bags from the system."

And sifting through the trash has now become more high-tech. There are three optical sorters, featuring a camera that takes pictures of the bottles passing through. A computer determines what type of plastic is there and uses a blast of air to separate them into the right areas.

The new recycling center is able to take in items from several DFW area counties and sort it at a very fast pace.

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