The material stream passes through a series of screens that allow for different fiber types to be sorted out. Cardboard, which has a large surface area, continues up and over the first screen made of widely spaced steel discs. The separated cardboard drops into a bunker where it waits to be baled.

Materials that are too small to travel up and over the cardboard screen, drop down below onto another conveyor or onto a glass breaker where they continue on in the sorting process.

The material stream passes through two more fiber-sorting screens. These screens have rotating discs made of rubber and are closer together than the cardboard screen. Like the cardboard screen, the placement and shape of these discs allows for smaller objects, like containers, to fall through and continue on in the sorting process. Flat materials, like newspaper, continue up and over the discs and fall onto conveyor belts located on a fiber sorting deck for further refinement.

Remaining fibers that are not separated by the cardboard or paper screens pass through a final specialty screen called a ballistic separator. The ballistic separator has paddles that shuffle
up and down like several sets of big skis. The paddles push the remaining flat materials, like paper, forward and up. The 3-dimensional materials, like containers, shuffle downward. The flat materials are pushed onto a conveyor belt located on the fiber sorting deck where they are separated even further. The 3-dimensional materials continue on in the sorting process.

The ballistic separator is the final point at which glass particles can be removed from the material stream. Small holes in the paddles allow for the glass particles to drop on a conveyor belt that bypasses the remaining sorting equipment.