Sorting conveyors engineered for your operation

Fluent builds sorting conveyors that move mixed recyclables through pick stations, separation equipment, and downstream baling. Every system is engineered for the abrasion, contamination, and volume swings of material recovery work.

This page covers conveyors that recover and separate recyclable material by stream, size, or condition. If you're routing parcels or SKUs to destinations in a distribution center, see our package handling conveyors.

Our sorting conveyors

From the initial infeed to the baler and box truck, we make conveyors that help you sort and process recyclables better.

Recycling sort stations

Recycling sort stations are the core of most operations. Sorters work a slow, wide belt and pull targets or contaminants into chutes. We build these as standard 4- through 12-man configurations. We also design fully custom systems for unique layouts, automation integration, and challenging material streams.

Sorting conveyors by recyclable stream

What you're sorting drives belt choice, speed, and how the conveyor is built. The streams below cover most recovery operations.

Material stream

Conveyor role

Design considerations

OCC and cardboard

Presort, transfer, baler feed

Large interlocking pieces; belt width and discharge geometry sized to clear bridging

Mixed paper and ONP

Manual sort, QC, bunker feed

Light material; controlled speed and burden depth for clean separation

Plastics

Container sort, optical-sort feed, QC

Bounce and light weight; even spread for consistent burden depth ahead of separation

Ferrous and non-ferrous metals

Container line, magnet and eddy current feed

Rolling small items; steady flow into metal separation

Glass

Separate handling or residue path

Breakage and abrasive fines; belt and component protection downstream

E-waste

Manual sort, inspection, transfer

Sharp parts and batteries; safer picking and transfer zones

Scrap and C&D

Heavy-duty infeed and sort

Abrasion and impact; heavy frames, steel belting, hardened components

Single stream and MSW

Presort, main sort platform, residue

Contamination and variable loads; line built around tonnage and staffing

If your stream isn't listed, send us the details. We engineer to your material.

Where sorting conveyors fit in a recovery line

Material enters at infeed, usually a pit conveyor recessed below the tipping floor, so a loader or skid steer dumps at grade. From there, it climbs to a presort, where oversized and problem items are removed before they reach the line. The main sort platform is where manual picking happens, with sorters pulling targets into chutes that feed bunkers below. Recovered streams then run to material recovery staging and, finally, to baler infeed for compaction into saleable bales.

Mechanical separation sits among these stages: optical sorters, magnets, eddy current separators, and screens. We size belt speed, width, and burden depth so each separator receives material at the spread it needs to work, and we build the transitions that move material cleanly between your equipment and ours.

Where sorting conveyors fit in a recovery line

Do you need a conveyor solution? Contact Fluent Conveyors

Plan a sorting line around your facility

Fluent designs and builds sorting conveyors in the USA, engineered to your material, layout, and recovery targets. Send us your material stream, target throughput, sorter count, layout or footprint, the upstream and downstream equipment in play, and whether this is a new line or a retrofit. Our engineering team will spec the conveyors and configuration that fit.

All Fluent conveyors

Fluent manufactures conveyor solutions for applications across recycling, waste management, logistics, and other industries. Explore all Fluent conveyors below.