TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - ORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Process: In the process, less than 40 wt.%; or less than 1 wt.%, of the mixed waste stream is separated as a recovered product using manual labor. The first conversion technique is selected from wet digestion, dry digestion, anaerobic digestion or composting. The first conversion technique produces biogas, and the biogas is converted to a liquid fuel. The first conversion technique includes digesting the organic waste in an induced blanket up-flow anaerobic digester. The dry organic material is further dried using waste heat from burning biogas and/or from burning dry organic material prior to being converted by the second conversion technique. The separation of the wet organic from the dry organic materials yields a dry organic material having less than 25% moisture content and the dry organic material is converted to a refuse derived fuel. The refuse derived fuel is combusted without expending thermal energy to dry the refuse derived fuel prior to combustion. The second conversion technique includes compacting the dry organic material and/or thermally oxidizing the dry organic material to produce electrical power and/or heat. The dry organic waste is enriched in plastics, and the second conversion technique involves sorting the dry organic material by separating 3-dimensional plastics from 2-dimensional plastics to yield a 3-dimensional recyclable plastic product. The 2-dimensional plastic is converted to a fuel and the 3-dimensional plastic is recycled to form a plastic product. The mixed waste stream includes inorganic waste, and the method further involves separating at least a portion of the inorganic waste from the wet organic waste material and the dry organic waste material to form an inorganic waste stream enriched in inorganic waste materials. Preferred Components: The mixed waste stream includes dry organic waste (at least 15 wt.%) and wet organic waste (at least 30 wt.%). The mixed waste stream (at least 10 wt.%) is dry organic waste selected from 3-D plastic, film plastic, paper, cardboard, rubber, textiles, and wood; or is wet organic waste selected from food waste, animal waste, and green waste. The mechanical sorter includes a shredder, a size separator, and/or density separator. The throughput of the mechanical sorter has a throughput of at least 10 metric tons per hour per single line of mixed solid waste. The mixed waste stream includes low value material (at least 20 wt.%) selected from wet organics, green waste, food waste, grit, fines less than 1 inch, asphalt, concrete, textiles, wood, rubber, film plastic, polyvinylchloride (PVC), foil, rock, used consumer products, low value glass and/or composite materials. EXAMPLE - No suitable example given.