Page 60 - Plastics News May 2024

TECHNOLOGY NEWS

AI Powers Next-Gen Plastic-Film Recycling

Hyperspectral imaging technology uses deep-learning artificial intelligence to sort flexible packaging and
other films rapidly and efficiently.

At a Glance Metaspectral’s technology uses spe- natural environments.
cialized cameras to capture hyper-
etaspectral wins $109,000 spectral images of waste plastics, Detects packaging films and more.
contract from the Canadian thus detecting the materials’ chemical “During the six-month [contract] pe-
government. signatures. Deep learning algorithms riod, the focus is on demonstrating the
Advanced imaging, paired then process the images, identifying technical and scientific merit and fea-
with AI, can identify and separate chal- the composition of the materials at the sibility of Metaspectral's approach,”
lenging flexible materials. polymer level. says Francis Doumet, CEO and co-
founder of Metaspectral. The company
Hyperspectral technology will virtually The signatures include up to 300 spec- “will train models to detect a variety of
eliminate contamination in recycled tral bands, vs. three bands with con- kinds of thin film and assess their ac-
films, boosting their value. ventional computer-vision systems. curacy.”

Environment Climate Change Canada Using AI algorithms to analyze the sig-
natures and identify materials enables Doumet adds that “the focus of the
(ECCC) has awarded a six-month, fast sorting that is more accurate than project is on challenging materials,” so
six-figure contract to Vancouver, BC- conventional manual and automated Metaspectral will investigate a range of
based Metaspectral to test an artificial- films, including monolayer, multilayer,
intelligence-enabled plastic-film sort- sorting. metallized, laminated, and coextruded
ing technology. According to ECCC, Canada generated materials.
The CAD$150,000/$108,962 contract about 1.4 million tons of plastic film in
2019, a fraction of which — less than The company will test films used for
is part of the Canadian Plastics Innova- 4% — was recycled, primarily because packaging and also films sourced from
tion Challenge, a program focused on of collection and sorting challenges. medical facilities. Testing will be per-
improving the collection and sorting Flexible packaging is also a pollutant, formed at the company’s Vancouver
of flexible packaging and other plastic littering Canadian shorelines and other facility. During the contract period,
films in Canada.

60 62 PLASTICS NEWSASTICS NEWS MA MAY 2024 PLASTICS NEWS 61
PL
MAY 2024Y 2024