Rethinking the Flow: Operational Lessons From a Successful Four-Decade MRF – As Seen In Waste Advantage Magazine
Understand the current system first, identify where the process itself is creating the problem, and integrate new technology in a way that complements the workflow rather than adding complexity to it.
Most MRFs built before the 1990s were never really designed. They evolved. Equipment got added when budgets allowed, layouts shifted around whatever problem was loudest that month, and staff learned to work around the gaps between what the system could do and what the job actually required. After enough years of that, the workarounds become invisible. They just evolve into how things are done.
Florence is a good example of that. The facility has been processing recyclables for the City of Florence and Lauderdale County in Alabama for close to 40 years, handling around 3,500 tons annually. Not the biggest operation in the state, but a continuous one, which means it had accumulated a full share of the incremental inefficiencies that tend to build up when nobody has time to step back and look at the whole picture.
Several years ago, the facility went through a serious redesign of its processing workflow. What came out of it was useful, not just in terms of what changed, but also how it clarified thinking through these kinds of projects in the first place.
The Building is Not Neutral
The most common mistake in MRF redesign projects is treating the facility like it does not have a building around it. Vendors show up with a system configuration that works well in purpose-built spaces and try to fit it into a structure that was never intended for that use. It usually does not translate cleanly.
At Florence, the building’s layout had quietly shaped operations in ways that were not easy to see until someone mapped the actual path that the material took from intake to output. Recyclables were being moved by skid steer between levels as a routine part of intake. Not because anyone thought that was a good idea, but because the layout did not offer a better option, and over time, that became the normal way to do it.
Working with Marathon Equipment Company, the team went back to first principles. Instead of selecting equipment and then figuring out placement, they started with the physical constraints of the building and worked forward from there. The move to an in-ground feed system came out of that process. Material could now be dumped directly into the system at the upper level, which cut out the intermediate handling steps entirely.
Throughput went up. The building footprint did not change. That type of outcome is available in a lot of facilities, but it requires starting the conversation in a different place than most equipment procurement processes do.
Marathon’s system-level expertise becomes especially clear when a project must begin with the realities of the building itself. Rather than forcing equipment into an existing footprint, Marathon engineers evaluated structural constraints and material flow before making any product placement decisions. By designing solutions that work in harmony with the physical environment, Marathon helped overcome space limitations, reduce labor demands, and achieve maximum efficiency, delivering equipment that quietly solves problems and provides long-term peace of mind under real-world operating conditions.
Separation Earlier Means Less Trouble Later
There is a tendency in older MRFs to push as much as possible onto the sort line and let manual labor sort out the rest. It works, up to a point. The problem is that it is slow and inconsistent from shift to shift, and it is getting harder to staff reliably.
The addition of a fiber screen at Florence separated mixed paper from the stream earlier in the process, before it reached the sort line. Improved magnetic separation was achieved by adding an eddy current aluminum sorter and a magnetic steel sorter, which removed ferrous material at the same time. Two changes, both the upstream and downstream effect, were noticeable almost immediately. The sort line was seeing cleaner material. Workers who had been spending most of their time handling paper could be moved to tasks where judgment actually mattered.
It is worth it to note that the goal of mechanical separation is not to eliminate people from the process. It is to stop asking people to do things machines can handle more consistently, so that the people still on the line are doing the work required of them.
Cardboard Economics are too Important to Leave to an Inefficient Process
Old Corrugated Containers, OCC, is the highest-volume commodity moving through most single-stream facilities. It is also, in a lot of older operations, one of the least efficiently processed materials in the building. That combination is a significant revenue leak that tends to go unexamined because the baling operation is running and the cardboard is getting out the door, it may feel like that is good enough.
At Florence, OCC baling had required multiple workers and operated in a stop-and-start pattern that created backlogs during high-volume periods. The installation of a Marathon Auto-Tie Baler with a push-wall configuration changed how the whole process ran, one operator, one skid steer, and a continuous feed. No more waiting on the line to catch up.
The operational improvement is real, but the revenue argument is what makes it worth prioritizing. Commodity markets move around, and there is nothing a facility can do about that. What is within operational control is how consistently and completely the facility captures the value of what it processes. Improvements to cardboard handling pay out every day, regardless of where the market sits.
Safety and Efficiency are Not Separate Conversations
In most facilities, safety is addressed through training and compliance programs. System design is a different conversation, handled by a different group of people at a different time. That separation is a mistake.
Several of the layout changes at Florence that improved material flow also reduced the number of places in the building where workers were interacting with loose material in tight spaces alongside moving equipment. That was not the primary goal of those changes, but it was a direct result of them. The operating environment became more predictable, less improvised, and easier to run correctly without depending on individual workers knowing all of the informal rules that have built up over the years.
Predictability in a processing environment does not just reduce injury risk, but it also produces more consistent output. Those two things are more connected than are usually credited.
What Actually Made the Difference
None of these changes worked in isolation. The in-ground feed simplified intake. The fiber screen and magnetic separation reduced the load on manual sorting. The push-wall baler improved cardboard throughput. Each change made the next step in the process easier to manage, and the cumulative effect was larger than any single upgrade would have been on its own.
That is the point that tends to get lost in equipment-focused discussions. A well-chosen piece of equipment in a poorly sequenced workflow will underperform. The same equipment, placed correctly within a system that routes material logically, will consistently return more than expected.
Marathon’s value in this project was not exclusively tied to its equipment catalog. It was the industry experience and knowledge, applied specifically to the constraints of this building. That kind of site-specific problem-solving is hard to replicate through a standard procurement process.
Where the Facility is Headed
For Florence, automation is the next area of focus, specifically in parts of the sort line where labor dependency is highest. The evaluation process is ongoing, and the approach will be the same as it was for the earlier redesign, understand the current system first, identify where the process itself is creating the problem, and integrate new technology in a way that complements the workflow rather than adding complexity to it.
Automating a process that is not well-designed first produces faster inefficiency. The sequencing work done over the past several years was necessary groundwork for whatever comes next.
For other MRF operators working through similar decisions, the most useful takeaway from Florence’s experience is probably this, the conversation about what to buy should come after the conversation about how material actually moves through your building. That order of operations matters more than most projects treat it.
