Circular Economy, Recycling & Remanufacturing calculator
Recycling Yield Calculator
Recycling yield is the share of incoming recyclable feedstock that exits a sorting or reprocessing line as saleable, on-spec recovered material. It is the single most-watched throughput metric at a material recovery facility (MRF) or plastics reprocessor because every point of yield lost is feedstock you paid to handle, sort, and then landfill or downcycle as residue. Plant managers, commodity buyers, and sustainability teams use it to benchmark line performance, price recovered material, and forecast how much output a given inbound tonnage will actually deliver. A weak yield usually points to contamination, poor inbound sorting, or equipment dialed too aggressively toward purity at the expense of recovery.
What this calculator does
- Calculate recovered saleable material yield from an incoming recycling stream after sorting, contamination, and processing losses.
- a team needs to tune sorting, contamination controls, and outlet selection for a recycling stream
- It computes saleable recovered material as a percentage of incoming recyclable material, then the gap in points between that actual yield and your target.
Formula used
- Recycling Yield = saleable recovered material ÷ incoming recyclable material × 100
- Recycling Yield gap to target = actual result - target recycling yield
Inputs explained
- Saleable recovered material: Count only the returns, parts, records, or material that meet the stated circular-economy condition for this calculation.
- Incoming recyclable material: Use the matching denominator from the same product family, stream, program, and reporting period.
- Target recycling yield: Enter the KPI, contract target, compliance limit, or internal action threshold used by the team.
How to use the result
- Use it per shift, per bale run, or per inbound supplier load to judge how efficiently your line converts recyclable feedstock into marketable output.
- It measures mass recovery only, not quality or grade — a 90% yield of off-spec, contaminated material can be worth less than a 75% yield of clean, mill-ready bales.
Common questions
- How do you calculate recycling yield? Divide saleable recovered material by incoming recyclable material and multiply by 100. With 18,400 kg recovered from 23,000 kg incoming, that is 18,400 / 23,000 x 100 = 80% yield.
- What is a good recycling yield? It depends on the stream. Single-stream MRFs often run 70-90% by mass after residue removal; clean industrial scrap (clear PET, baled OCC) can exceed 95%. The 80% in the example sits in a normal MRF band but trails an 82% target by 2 points.
- Why is my recycling yield below target? The most common causes are inbound contamination, moisture, fines and small particles falling through screens, and optical sorters tuned for purity that reject borderline material. In the example you are 2 points short, which is typically recoverable through inbound education or sorter retuning.
- What is the difference between recycling yield and recovery rate? Yield here is saleable output divided by recyclable input on a single line. A municipal recovery rate divides recycled tonnage by total waste generated. Yield is a plant-floor efficiency metric; recovery rate is a community diversion metric.
- Does recycling yield account for material quality? No. This calculation is purely mass-based. Two bales at the same 80% yield can fetch very different prices if one has higher contamination, so always pair yield with a contamination or grade check before quoting.
Last reviewed 2026-05-12.