In the past, contamination has been a greater problem in products made from recycled materials than in similar products not made from recycled materials. To deal with the problem, the recycling industry, with help from local governments, has set up materials recovery facilities (MRFs), whose purpose is to separate contaminated, unusable materials from relatively high-quality raw material that is useful for making recycled products. However, the cost of this processing step, which involves use of labor-intensive sorting systems, has far exceeded what environmental policy makers originally anticipated. Studies indicate that the total cost of collecting, transporting, and processing recyclable materials at an MRF is generally $150 to $200 per ton, while the average cost of collecting, transporting, and disposing of the same materials without recycling them is $100 to $125 per ton. The only material processed and sold by recycling programs that is clearly profitable is aluminum, which has a relatively high market value. Since prices paid on the market for most other materials processed at MRFs make it impossible to run a processing business without covering costs some other way, MRF operators must charge local governments for the service of assuring that recyclables are indeed reused rather than discarded. This problem could be alleviated by stricter government regulations requiring industry to use recycled materials, since demand presumably would increase as a result and market values of materials would rise accordingly.