Tomra Sorting Recycling has developed a new technology designed to separate single-layer PET trays from PET bottles.
The new technology, Tomra Sharp Eye, is intended to enhance the previous capability of the company's Autosort machine to separate multi-layer trays.
Tomra Sorting Recycling Product Manager Valerio Sama said: “We expect our new Tomra Sharp Eye technology to be welcomed by collection-and-sorting plants and by PET regeneration centers.
“Demand for this is likely to grow, because the widening international adoption of on-the-go lifestyles is pushing-up the use of plastic drink bottles and plastic trays used for fruit, vegetables and other foodstuffs.”
Tomra said that its Tomra systems feature artificial intelligence to enable seamless analysis of sorted products, making the future plants even smarter.
The company noted that enabling a wide range of calibration possibilities allows to distinguish even the finest molecular differences in materials flowing down the recycling line the new technology's bigger lens for higher light intensity makes it possible to identify the most difficult to distinguish properties.
During the preparation for sorting mixed plastics into different polymers, packaging material collected or pre-sorted from municipal solid waste (MSW) will initially run through a mechanical treatment process.
This process is intended to reduce voluminous materials, mainly soft items such as plastic, film, and non-plastic products.
In order to separate mixed PET into different polymers, the Autosort machine, as a combined system, will detect material and color in combination with grain size.
The process is expected to achieve a sorting efficiency of 95% or greater even with a very mixed material input, the company said.
The firm, in a statement, said: “The step-by-step process which concludes with the separation of single-layer PET trays and PET bottles is seamless and flexible.”
