Nearly two years after Placer County’s recyclable sorting facility near Truckee started to receive a $1.2 million upgrade, the amount of goods being recovered has soared.

The first full operational fiscal year ended in June.

Compared to the year prior to the improvements, recovery of plastics has increased by 21 percent and recovery of aluminum has increased by 37 percent. About 600,000 more plastic bottles were diverted than before the improvements and about 1 million more aluminum cans.

The upgrades included metering equipment at the beginning of the sorting line that helps control the volume of waste loaded onto the conveyor belt, a new sorting screen that spreads the waste out for better visibility, and four new sorting stations added at the end of the line that increases the opportunity for workers to pull more recyclable materials.

Since opening in 1995 to facilitate the closure of the adjacent Eastern Regional Sanitary Landfill, which had been in operation since 1973, the materials recovery facility, or MRF, has operated as a sorting and transfer station for waste collected in the eastern portion of the county and in Truckee. Recyclables are separated at the sorting facilities.

California requires all cities and counties to divert a minimum of 50 percent of all waste from the landfill.