In Grandson, artificial intelligence comes to the rescue of the plastic recycling complex

In the canton of Vaud, a company uses AI to identify different plastics and direct them towards the right recycling sector. A promising technology, while Switzerland must improve the sorting and recycling of plastics.

The Vaud company Cand-Landi inaugurated on Thursday in Grandson, near Yverdon, a new high-performance plastic sorting center, in the presence of the cantonal authorities. The modernization of its RC-Plast 2.0 plant uses artificial intelligence and optical sorting.

The different types and formats of plastics scroll on a carpet and are better separated thanks to artificial intelligence, explains the company. Based on a continuous learning system, this technology allows even more plastics to be recycled.

Better and faster than humans

In service since April, the new facility has already processed several thousand tons of materials, thus giving a second life to these materials. Previously, many PET bottles were incinerated, failing to be correctly identified by optical sensors.

« We can sort about 2000 products per minute. It’s 30 to 40 times more than a human being could do, with far fewer mistakes, » says Cand-Landi director Xavier Prudhomme on Saturday in the 12:45 p.m. of the RTS. At the end of the chain, control by employees remains necessary.

Despite the AI, employees still manually sort bottles in the RC-Plast plastics sorting plant in Granson (VD). [KEYSTONE – VALENTIN FLAURAUD]

New industrial center in the North of Vaud

Used today on PET and bottles harvested throughout French-speaking Switzerland, this technology could soon make it possible to effectively sort all types of plastics. The longer-term objective is to create a complete plastic recycling sector, which currently does not exist in Switzerland.

« We have a plan to build a new sorting plant for all household plastic packaging. Gradually, we will equip ourselves in Switzerland to achieve virtuous recycling, as for PET bottles, » announces Xavier Prudhomme.

This new factory project, planned in Bonvillars in the North of Vaud, is part of an industrial center under development that would also include a used tire sorting and recovery plant and a new regional waste sorting center. According to the director of Cand-Landi, an investment of 70 million francs is planned.

Political pressure to do better

This pole responds to the political program of the current legislature of the Canton of Vaud. It benefits from the political and economic support of the Council of State, led by the Service for the Promotion of the Economy and Innovation (SPEI). In particular, aid of CHF two million was granted.

Apart from PET, which works well with a recycling rate of more than 80%, plastics processing is one of Switzerland’s black spots. But the Confederation wants to change things. A recent federal ordinance imposes a plastic recycling rate of at least 55%, compared to only 9% at present.

source : RTS