Work out material recovery yield instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.
Sorting performance has two independent dimensions: capture rate, the fraction of target material recovered, and purity, the fraction of the output that is actually the target. Pushing capture higher usually lowers purity, and the optimum depends on which the reprocessor penalises more heavily.
Capture
Captured = input x target fraction x capture rate
Product mass
Product = captured / purity; contamination = product - captured
Sorting equipment separates on a physical property with overlapping distributions. Setting a threshold to catch more target material inevitably admits more near-miss contaminants.
Typically 95-98% for paper grades and PET bottles, with strict limits on specific contaminants. Loads outside specification are rejected or heavily discounted, so purity often matters more than capture.