Those clay scraps left from throwing and trimming the pots are put in basins and left to dry off to the side. They go from bone dry clay, to slaked with water till mushy, then they're allowed to firm up to still too soft, but almost workable.
It really adds up fast. Hard to imagine this can eventually become anything interesting.
To recycle, it's scooped out blob by blob and put on plaster batts to pull out excess water. As soon as the clay is not too super sticky, it's wedging time.
Slaked clay firming up a bit on plaster, nearly ready to wedge. More slaked clay in basins, not seen in the picture, to be spread on batts after this batch and the next batch and... (And more dry clay scrap already building up, in the background.)
Spiral wedging.
3 1/2 hours of reclaiming and wedging. This is what 130 lbs. of recycled and wedged clay looks like.
Off to take a couple of Advil.