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Inside a 100 TPH C&D Sorting Line: A High-Throughput Case Study
June 23, 2026 · 7 min · Sherbrooke OEM
When a Quebec construction-and-demolition (C&D) operator rebuilt its Montreal-area sorting centre, it did not simply replace what it had — it jumped from a small, mostly manual plant to a high-throughput line running up to 100 tonnes per hour. Sherbrooke OEM designed, fabricated, and installed the system, a project profiled in Magazine 3Rve. For anyone planning a line, the lesson is not the size — it is what high throughput unlocks.
Why throughput changes the economics
The first C&D sorting centres in the province, around 2005, were small — roughly 20 to 25 tonnes per hour, almost entirely manual, with little equipment. At that volume, the recovery steps that capture the most value — vibrating screens for fines, air separation for the light fraction, density separation for clean aggregate — rarely pay for themselves.
At 100 tonnes per hour the arithmetic flips. The same recovery equipment is justified by the volume flowing past it, so one line can pull clean aggregate, multiple grades of wood, fines, ferrous and non-ferrous metal, and fibre out of the same mixed stream. The reported result: roughly 80% of C&D residuals can be given a second life at high volume, versus about 45% at small volume — with roughly the same number of operators. Throughput is not vanity; it is the variable that decides which recovery steps are worth installing.
The line, position by position
Trucks tip mixed C&D in bulk at the infeed. A grapple or crane pulls the oversize and non-processable items — tarps, bulky debris — before anything reaches the line.
From there a heavy steel apron / metering conveyor takes the impact of dense, jagged debris and feeds a controlled, even burden onto the line — the unglamorous but critical first machine (see steel apron vs belt for primary infeed).
Screening comes next: trommel and vibrating or disc screens split the stream by size, pulling fines and small aggregate out early. Air and density separation lift the light fraction — film and fibre — away from the heavies. Magnetic separation then recovers ferrous metal, and an eddy current separator recovers non-ferrous (see electro vs permanent overhead magnets). Manual sorters handle final quality control. The order of those steps is what determines recovery — the logic is laid out in why equipment order decides your recovery rate.
Built to grow
The plant was commissioned in stages, one sorting line at a time, and engineered with the structure and space to add NIR and AI optical sorting — from sister company Eagle Vizion — later, without redesigning the line. A high-throughput system is a platform, not a fixed install: capacity and automation can be layered in as volumes and economics justify them.
What it means for your project
If your volume justifies it, high-throughput design captures materials a small plant leaves in the residual — which is where both the diversion rate and the resale revenue come from. The right opening question is not “which machine,” it is “what throughput do my volumes support,” because that answer sets everything downstream.
Sherbrooke OEM designs, fabricates, and installs complete C&D sorting systems in-house, from layout through commissioning. To scope a line against your own volumes and material, talk to engineering.