The world’s first large-scale plant for automatic textile sorting started operation at SYSAV’s facility in Malmö, the largest city in the Swedish county of Scania. A 30-metre long machine has a sorting capacity of 24,000 tonnes of textiles per year and is reportedly expected to revolutionise Swedish textile recycling and create new markets for textile waste.

 

The automated sorting is based on optical sensors that, with the help of near-infrared light, can sort textiles according to color and fiber composition with high precision, according to media reports in Sweden. This makes it possible to handle large textile flows while at the same time producing textile fractions that match the needs of textile recyclers and textile companies. In full operation, the plant has a capacity to sort 24,000 tonnes of textiles per year.