I took a friend on a second tour of this facility and was fascinated all over again. They offer tours, including free tours for groups of kids. Contact them at their website: simsmunicipal.com/Contact-Us Here are some of the interesting facts on offer here: Recycling Facts Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours. It takes the same amount of energy to produce 20 recycled aluminum cans as it does to produce just one new aluminum can. Producing recycled aluminum creates 97% less water pollution than producing new metal from ore. Every three months, Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire US commercial air fleet. Recycling plastic saves 84% of the energy required to make plastic bottles from raw materials (i.e., crude oil). Glass can be recycled again and again with no loss in quality or purity. Three fourths of all American steel ends up recycled into new products and all of today's steel products contain recycled steel. The typical appliance consists of about 75% steel by weight and is easily recyclable. Energy requirements decrease 60% when using steel scrap to make new steel compared to mining iron ore and smelting it in a blast furnace. Recycling one ton of steel saves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal and 120 pounds of limestone. Automobiles are the most recycled consumer products, with large amounts of steel and other valuable recyclable materials, which have a recycling rate close to 100% – meaning that a car at the end of its useful life is not destined for a landfill, but for a recycling facility.

My companion and I joined a tour of this facility led by the New York Adventure Club last year. It was fascinating and very educational, with an excellent museum and a very well thought out presentation and tour of the facility. Don't worry about smells -- you are far away from all of the materials and very safe physically. The Sunset Park MRF serves as the principal processing facility for all of New York City’s curbside residential metal, glass, and plastic recyclables as part of a long-term contract between Sims Municipal Recycling and the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY). The facility has the capacity to process 1,000 tons of material a day, shipping sorted commodities to markets around the world. The City and Sims have invested $110 million into building the facility, a key part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030 for a “greener, greater New York.” The money was very well spent, and many of the techniques are just being adopted around the United States. We were very interested to learn the history of Sims and of the great recycling work done by Danish companies.