SORTING | TECHNOLOGY


The development of AI for sorting recycled plastics


James Snodgrass looks at advances in sorting technology for plastics recycling, many of which involve artificial intelligence


You can’t write an article about sorting in 2025 without mentioning artificial intelligence (AI). You probably couldn’t write an article about any activity without mentioning AI, for that matter, such is its staggering growth since the generative AI large language model (LLM) ChatGPT was unleashed on an unsuspecting public in 2022. AI is not a new concept in sorting technology, whether using machine learning to eliminate scraps of black plastic, or picking the juiciest, ripest strawberries with which to fill a punnet. But the public – even those who are enthusiastic about the technologies – is starting to notice two things about generative AI: it frequently makes mistakes; and, after a period of exponential progress, AI is begin- ning to plateau (former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates


www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com


predicted two years ago that OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, had hit a plateau with ChatGPT 4). In August, OpenAI released its latest LLM,


ChatGPT 5, with the promise that using it would be like talking to a PhD-level expert, according to BBC News. Within a day, users expressed their dissatis- faction in a Reddit chat with OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, and OpenAI backtracked, allowing access to the earlier ChatGPT 4 model to paid subscribers. When it comes to sorting technology in recy-


cling, AI is here, and AI is extremely efficient, but even the latest technologies are said to have “near-human accuracy”. When technologies approach a plateau – or what economists call “the technology S-Curve” – improvements become incremental rather than transformational. It remains


September 2025 | PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD 31


Main image: Tomra is using artificial


intelligence to accurately sort different PP packaging types


IMAGE: TOMRA


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46