In order to meet the recycling targets set by the European Union, continuous innovations and investments in process and equipment technology are required, especially in secondary raw material processing. To determine the optimisation possibilities and limits in existing secondary raw material processing plants, the current status must first be assessed by a detailed material flow balance. The complexity of these processing plants, which have usually grown over the years, poses a considerable challenge for the balancing process. In addition, the heterogeneous material flow compositions make representative sampling and the achievement of a suitable balance even harder. Only through careful elaboration of a complete sampling plan, conscientious analysis and the use of mathematical balancing programmes a plant of this complexity can be balanced successfully. This Master Thesis provides general insights into legal provisions and criteria of waste treatment as well as into theoretical treatment basics for sampling and material flow balancing. The main part of the thesis is the design of a suitable sampling scheme for the shredder residue processing plant as well as the material flow balancing. The required analysis is based on the Leoben school of property analysis. During the execution of the extensive sampling campaign, a total of 1,184 individual samples were taken from 68 material streams. The resulting weekly bulk samples were then rejuvenated to representative analysis quantities and separated by time-consuming class analysis using hand-picking-method for the calculation of the balance. With the help of a mathematical balancing programme “Solver”, a balance table was created based on mass and content conservation. It shows a highly effective as well as efficient separation across the entire shredder residue processing plant.