Technically photography was not allowed here, and I can start to see why. This facility was essentially built to comply with a statewide mandate that 50% of the refuse stream be diverted to recycling. In order to hit that aggressive target, the city implemented mixed stream recycling, hoping it would encourage more people to recycle more of their garbage. By single stream recycling, a household does not need to separate glass, metal, and plastic into individual bins. Instead, workers are paid to this sorting after the fact. It's debatable whether having the consumer or a professional sort recycling is more efficient. What is clear is what the city has made up in diversion rates, it has lost in quality of recyclable materials. The city sells its recyclable materials as low grade goods because it typically contains about 5% foreign content, either through sorting errors or, because one recyclable (for example paper) has been contaminated by a second recyclable such as a dirty can of tuna.