Page 32 - Plastics News Issue May 2025
P. 32
ENVIRONMENT NEWS
The Sky Is The Limit For Tomra
t PRS Europe, TOMRA Recycling’s Al- TOMRA has been working with AI since 2019,
berto Piovesan discussed how artificial when their deep learning system could only
Aintelligence—specifically deep learning— perform one task—removing silicone cartridges.
combined with advanced flake sorting technol- Since then, they’ve expanded it to sort between
ogy is revolutionizing plastic recycling. food and non-food plastics, clean aluminum,
and even tackle tricky materials like wood. Pi-
Their AI tool, GAIN next, recently won an industry ovesan said that while the technology is strong,
award, and Piovesan explained why. The system the challenge now is teaching it the right things,
uses neural networks, which are a form of deep since packaging and materials vary around the
learning, to mimic how humans identify and sort world and change frequently.
materials by analyzing millions of images. This
lets machines recognize even very complex or Looking ahead, TOMRA wants to keep improv-
damaged items by their shapes or features— ing recycling rates while helping customers save
something traditional sensors struggle with. money. Piovesan emphasized that their real val-
ue is in the combination of high-tech machines
Flake sorting, another key part of TOMRA’s pro- and expert support. Though AI is sometimes
cess, is used after the initial pre-sorting stage. misunderstood, he sees it as a decision-making
It helps ensure that plastic fragments are clean tool that, when used properly, allows for smarter
and sorted by type (like PET, PE, and PP), color, and more efficient recycling. He believes edu-
and contaminants. This level of precision is vital cating people about how AI and deep learning
for producing high-quality recycled plastic, es- actually work will help build trust in these power-
pecially under new European regulations that re- ful technologies.
quire removing chemicals like BPA. By combin-
ing strong pre-sorting with smart flake sorting, Source: Interplasinsights
recyclers can get more usable plastic out of the
waste and lower costs, even when the incoming
material is messy or mixed.
32 PLASTICS NEWS May 2025
