Community Recycling’s Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in Sun Valley offers the opportunity to process residential, commercial, and multi-family mixed refuse prior to transfer and disposal. The MRF is part of the above-referenced solid waste facility, which began to operate as both a mixed waste processing facility and transfer station in 1974.

Over the past 30 years it has processed an ever-increasing quantity of mixed solid waste to separate out recyclables for high grading and consolidation prior to marketing, with the flexibility to vary diversion rates depending on disposal economics, landfill capacity and client diversion requirements. 

In 1974 the resource recovery operations consisted of handpicking cardboard, newspaper and metal from 300 tons per day of waste prior to loading the residual in roll-off containers, with a resulting 2% recovery rate.

The state-of-the-art mixed waste recycling system has extensive processing equipment including trommels, conveyors, picking platforms, magnets, and air classifier for separation of heavy and light weight materials.  Recyclable materials are extracted through both manual and automated systems and the facility tracks total tons processed, recycled, and disposed as residue.  Recycling rates are tracked using these facility tonnage records and provided to the City of Los Angeles, Bureau of Sanitation, which has a certification system for further verifying recycling rates of various facilities in the Los Angeles region.