Via the disposal of mixed municipal solid waste, a considerable amount of valuable resources is still discharged from material cycles. Regarding the protection of natural resources and landfill volume the recovery of those recyclable fractions is essential. Within the scope of the Circular Economy Package this issue was seized by the European Union in 2015, in which prospective targets on the recycling of residual waste are set. On the one hand conventional steps of the European waste management must be reconsidered, on the other hand new methods for recycling must be developed to achieve these ambitious targets. In this thesis the heavy fractions produced by wet and dry mechanical treatment of residual waste are compared regarding the potential of recyclable fractions. For this purpose, the theoretical part deals with information about residual waste in Austria as well as the theory of selected processing and sorting techniques. In the course of the practical task sorting and separating experiments with the available heavy fractions were conducted. On the basis of the data gained by the sorting analysis of the generated recyclable fractions, a mass flow analysis as well as the determination of yield and purity were made. Finally, the comparison of both methods based on the quantitative evaluation was drawn.