TOMRA uses IFAT 2024 to demonstrate the role its technologies are playing in transforming resource recovery  

The industry’s latest AI-powered solution enabling food-grade sorting, MDF rercovery and more

With forthcoming changes to EU legislation governing packaging waste and recycled plastic food contact materials, TOMRA is anticipating a lot of interest among IFAT visitors in the latest advances to its GAINnext™ technology.

Thanks to TOMRA’s continued investment in the company’s AI-powered deep learning technology – available as an add-on for its AUTOSORT™ units – it is now possible to separate food-grade from non-food-grade plastics for PET, PP and HDPE on a large scale with exceptional purity levels of over 95%. With this latest sophisticated application of deep learning and AI, TOMRA has once again demonstrated its position as a pioneer in the AI-powered transformation of recycling.

TOMRA has used AI technology to improve sorting performance for decades, but this latest groundbreaking application marks another industry first for TOMRA who also introduced the first deep learning technology for waste sorting in 2019.

An application for wood sorting followed in 2022 that is sure to captivate IFAT visitors involved in the wood recycling industry. GAINnext™ identifies objects by their shape, size, and other visual characteristics. With high precision and stability, it efficiently sorts various types of wood. Not only can GAINnext™ distinguish between natural and processed wood, but it also excels in recovering MDF—a new trending process in wood recycling. This results in pure MDF fractions that are perfectly suited for further recycling.  

For those visitors interested in finding out more about TOMRA’s latest metal recycling solutions, TOMRA’s metals experts will be on hand at the show to highlight the company’s AUTOSORT™ PULSE unit. Designed for high throughput sorting of aluminum alloys, AUTOSORT™ PULSE features dynamic laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). The solution redefines industry standards and paves the way for high-throughput production of green aluminum. And, thanks to its AI-based object singulation feature, even overlapping and adjacent objects can be accurately separated to maximize yield.
 

Digital solutions to optimize process and material flow

TOMRA recognizes that the data insights generated from sorting operations play a critical role in facilitating plant operators' quest to run a profitable business – with minimum downtime and maximum output. At IFAT 2024, TOMRA’s experts will be able to demonstrate two digital solutions which are helping its customers to optimize their process and material flow: TOMRA Insight and PolyPerception’s waste analyzer.

Following TOMRA’s acquisition of a 25% stake in PolyPerception – a pioneering start-up offering AI-based waste flow monitoring – TOMRA’s customers can now also benefit from PolyPerception’s real-time end-to-end waste flow monitoring. The waste analyzer solution measures data at key points during the sorting process, providing traceability and transparency. Sorting facility operators are able to continuously assess the quality of sorted streams and the loss of good material in the residual stream to enable data-driven decisions. The technology also functions as an automated compliance system, which can ensure adherence to stringent regulations governing food-grade recycling and local legislation.
​ 

TOMRA booth in hall B6

Fabrizio Radice, Head of Global Sales and Marketing at TOMRA Recycling Sorting, comments: “At TOMRA, we have accomplished what many in our industry have tried to solve: separating food-grade from non-food-grade plastics for PET, PP and HDPE.