The campus contains several structures, including an education center and New York City's first commercial-scale wind turbine.

It was designed by architect Annabelle Selldorf[3] and built on the site of a former New York Police Department impound lot.

[3][7] The tipping building's exterior is composed of exposed steel girders and lateral bracing; according to architectural writer Pavel Bendov, this helped the facility "avoid its fate as another box warehouse".

At the time, Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times praised its design, calling it "understated, well proportioned and well planned – elegant, actually, and not just for a garbage site" and suggested good design principles could work to help sell the public on the idea of recycling, which is necessary in order for the facility to succeed.

[4][9][10] The plant is New York City's primary recycling facility, and processes three-quarters of its plastic, metal, and glass.

[5][13] It is dumped into a pile on the main facility's floor where large items are removed manually and the rest put on conveyor belt.

[17] Optical sorters identify and separate certain types of plastic and paper, with air jets passing selected items from one line to another.

[14] The city pays Sims to process its recycling at a rate of approximately $75 per ton of metal, glass, and plastic that comes from its sanitation trucks.

[19] The facility's activity and revenue are affected by politics, such as shifting policies in China reducing the amount of foreign recycled material it would accept, and debates over the implementation or expansion of New York's 1983 bottle bill, which allows people to redeem certain kinds of containers for a deposit fee.