Operate recycling processing equipment, such as sorters, balers, crushers, and granulators to sort and process materials.

“Operate recycling processing equipment, such as sorters, balers, crushers, and granulators to sort and process materials.” is a supplemental task performed by Recycling Coordinators. Among the occupation's 23 rated tasks, workers place it 14th by importance (#10 most important). About 40% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Operate industrial processing or production equipment. in Controlling Machines and Processes

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Oversee recycling pick-up or drop-off programs to ensure compliance with community ordinances. · importance 4.2
• Assign truck drivers or recycling technicians to routes. · importance 4.1
• Maintain logs of recycling materials received or shipped to processing companies. · importance 4.0
• Create or manage recycling operations budgets. · importance 4.0
• Prepare bills of lading, statements of shipping records, or customer receipts related to recycling or hazardous material services. · importance 4.0
• Supervise recycling technicians, community service workers, or other recycling operations employees or volunteers. · importance 4.0
• Inspect physical condition of recycling or hazardous waste facility for compliance with safety, quality, and service standards. · importance 3.9
• Negotiate contracts with waste management or other firms. · importance 3.9
• Coordinate shipments of recycling materials with shipping brokers or processing companies. · importance 3.8
• Review customer requests for service to determine service needs and deploy appropriate resources to provide service. · importance 3.8
• Operate fork lifts, skid loaders, or trucks to move or store recyclable materials. · importance 3.7
• Schedule movement of recycling materials into and out of storage areas. · importance 3.6
• Oversee campaigns to promote recycling or waste reduction programs in communities or private companies. · importance 3.6
• Provide training to recycling technicians or community service workers on topics such as safety, solid waste processing, or general recycling operations. · importance 3.6

See all tasks on the Recycling Coordinators page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-17901,
  title  = {Operate recycling processing equipment, such as sorters, balers, crushers, and granulators to sort and process materials.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-17901}
}