Sorting Potential Test Protocols
APR’s testing suite includes an essential set of protocols that assess how package design affects sortation, a critical step in the recycling process.

Commodity or Contaminant?
Proper sortation is critical to the recyclability of a package. Even if all other aspects of package design are well considered, packages that fail to sort correctly are destined for the landfill. Modern curbside recycling allows residents to conveniently commingle packaging of many materials. From the moment recyclables are collected, they undergo a sequence of sortation and cleaning steps to be transformed into new products. The image below represents a typical MRF and twelve stages of sortation. This is why APR has developed Sorting Potential Test Protocols—providing a method for companies to test if their packaging or product will successfully make it through the plastic recycling system.

Test methods that simulate the sorting process.
The APR Sorting Potential Test Methods can accurately predict whether a plastic package successfully sorts into the correct commodity stream at MRFs and plastics reclaimers. The test methods offer laboratory and pilot scale representations of standard collection and sorting procedures for single-stream recyclables. The test methods assume that comingled recyclables are collected curbside, compacted in a typical recycling collection truck, sorted through an automated MRF into bales of similar materials, then further processed at the plastics reclaimer in their original form before being reduced in size to a complete pellet or flake for use in new manufacturing.
Why are sorting potential tests necessary?
Sortation is complicated and sorting parameters cannot always be distilled into design guidance. When packages come close to the limits of sorting correctly, a test is necessary to determine the outcome. The APR Sorting Potential Test Protocols enable testing in a controlled environment at laboratory or pilot scale. It is difficult, if not impossible, for brands and packaging engineers to find full-scale sorting facilities that are capable of testing and proven to be representative of the industry average
The APR Sorting Potential Test Protocols represent the entire sorting process at both MRFs and reclaimers. To otherwise test sortation definitively, one would need to run a package through multiple industrial scale facilities. Both processes must be represented to draw accurate conclusions. The APR Sorting Potential Test Protocols differentiate themselves from alternative methods of sort testing by providing an expected average for consistency and reliably. Sorting technologies vary in commercial practice and it is not the intent of these protocols to model every possible process outcome but rather to represent a common set of parameters widely employed in the recycling industry.
The APR sorting potential test methods are replicable and reliable.
All APR Sorting Potential Test Protocols have undergone extensive comparisons to real-life industrial processes to ensure that the results accurately predict the average sorting process. The protocols are designed to provide consistent, repeatable results, which may not occur in field tests. Variability is common even within any given recycling plant. Factors outside the operators’ control affect sorting results – even the weather. (For example, wet material sorts differently than dry material, and rubber machinery is harder when cold than hot). The sorting potential protocols establish fixed parameters to remove this variability and provide consistent results not possible in field testing.
An isolated test at one MRF or reclaimer would yield inconclusive results. Only field testing at many facilities and on many processes, such as was conducted by APR, will result in an accurate prediction of the industry average. Industrial processes of different sizes, equipment manufacturers, and technologies were carefully chosen to represent the variability within the industry. Testing on these processes was used to develop each protocol.
When should you use the APR Sorting Test Protocols?
APR does not require that every package be tested through the sorting potential protocols. The APR Design® Guide classifies each feature of packaging design according to known recycling performance, when possible. When a package design feature is classified as “Requires Testing,” the APR Design® Guide specifies the necessary test. See below the different types of Sortation Test Protocols that APR offers.
APR Sorting Potential Test Protocols
Below is a summary of APR’s protocols and the relevant triggers for testing.
Protocol Name | Protocol Description | Trigger | Supporting Documentation |
SORT-P-00 | Practice for Compressing Plastic Articles for Laboratory Evaluation | Prerequisite for all other sorting tests | N/A |
SORT-EE-01 | Preliminary Evaluation of the Near Infrared (NIR) Sorting Potential of a Whole Plastic Article | Screening test for a preliminary evaluation of NIR sortation potential SORT-S-01 | N/A |
SORT-S-01 | Evaluation of the Near Infrared (NIR) Sorting Potential of a Whole Article | Black or Dark colors with L value < 40 or NIR reflectance ≤ to 10% Packages < 550 ml with label coverage > 55% Packages > 550ml with label coverage > 75% | RES-SORT-01 NIR Sorting Resource |
SORT-S-02 | Evaluation of the Size Sorting Potential for Articles with at Least 2 Dimensions Less than 2 Inches | Packages < 5 cm in two dimensions | RES-SORT-02 Size Sortation Resource |
SORT-S-03 | Evaluation of Sorting Potential for Plastic Articles Utilizing Metal, Metalized, or Metallic Printed Components | Attachments, inks, pigments or labels containing metal or metallization | RES-SORT-03a Metal Sorting Resource RES-SORT-03b Metal Decoration Resource |
SORT-S-04 | Evaluation of the Color Sorting Potential of a Clear PET Article with Label Coverage Greater than APR Design Guidance | PET packages < 550 ml with label coverage > 55% PET packages > 550 ml with label coverage > 75% | N/A |
SORT-S-05 | Evaluation of the Two Dimensional/Three Dimensional (2d3d) Sorting Potential of a Whole Article | Items potentially compressing to a thin shape | RES-SORT-05 2D3D Sortation Resource |