Municipal Waste Sorting Equipment worked example

Capacity Gap at 61% sort-line availability: a worked example in municipal waste sorting equipment

Suppose sort-line availability falls to 61%. This page works the full calculation at that level so you can see exactly which result moves and by how much. Estimate the realistic tons per shift a sort line can deliver so you can see the gap against contracted inbound tonnage.

The inputs for this scenario

  • Tons fed per cycle on the bottleneck line: 0.25 tons / cycle (held at the documented default)
  • Available sort cycles per shift: 480 cycles (held at the documented default)
  • Sort-line availability: 61 % (the input this scenario stresses; the baseline uses 85)
  • First-pass recovery yield: 92 % (held at the documented default)

Working through the calculation

  • The calculation starts from the formula this tool documents: Gross sort line capacity = tons per cycle x available cycles per shift.
  • Net sort line capacity (tons/shift) works out to 67.34 tons / shift at these inputs, and this is the headline figure for the scenario.
  • Gross sort line capacity (tons/shift) works out to 120 tons / shift at these inputs.
  • Availability loss works out to 46.8 tons / shift at these inputs.
  • First-pass yield loss works out to 5.86 tons / shift at these inputs.

How this compares with the baseline

  • Against the tool's baseline example, where sort-line availability sits at 85% and the headline result is 93.84 tons / shift, this scenario comes in 28.24% below the baseline at 67.34 tons / shift.
  • It multiplies tons per cycle by cycles per shift for gross capacity, then derates by availability and first-pass yield to give net recovered tons per shift. When the numbers land here, the stressed input is the lever to work; the walkthrough above shows exactly how much each output recovers as it climbs back toward the baseline.

Results at a glance

  • Net sort line capacity (tons/shift): 67.34 tons / shift (headline result)
  • Gross sort line capacity (tons/shift): 120 tons / shift
  • Availability loss: 46.8 tons / shift
  • First-pass yield loss: 5.86 tons / shift

Run it with your numbers

  • To rerun this with your own numbers, open the live Capacity Gap calculator, set sort-line availability to your actual value, and adjust the remaining inputs to match your operation.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.