Employees usually don't touch what's carried along this conveyor belt on its way to a trash bin. The belt's cargo is garbage. Actually, it's worse. It's items that were sifted out of raw sewage at Canton's Water Pollution Control Center.

Four steel grates effectively fish out the solids (no, not those kinds of solids), and dump them on the belt. The system is a first line of defense at the city's treatment plant on Central Avenue SE.

"Basically, anything you flush or drop into a manhole eventually gets here," said Tracy Mills, plant superintendent.


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