PICVISA, a specialist in artificial intelligence (AI) based optical sorting for the recycling industry, will exhibit at the 29th edition of Ecomondo, Europe’s leading circular economy event, from 3 to 6 November at Rimini Expo Centre, stand 506, hall A3. This year’s edition opens a dedicated textiles hall for the first time, reflecting the pressure that European waste regulation and extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes are putting on recyclers to deliver traceable, high-purity fractions at scale.
From garment to fraction with no manual pre-sorting
The centrepiece of PICVISA’s presence is a fully automated post-consumer textile line created by integrating its ECOSORT optical sorting system with Girbau’s Sortech automated feeding and separation system. The result is one continuous process from incoming textiles to sorted fractions, removing repetitive manual handling from high-volume flows. The system is already running at a newly commissioned plant in Northern Europe, one of the first European installations to fully integrate both technologies.
Two further advances strengthen the sorting itself. PICVISA’s EcoExpert platform no longer has a fixed limit on the number of fibre classes a single machine can identify, so plants can expand classification as material flows or EPR requirements evolve. And the technology now distinguishes fabric construction, automatically separating knitted from woven textiles. Because the two structures behave differently in recycling, construction-based sorting produces cleaner, route-ready fractions for both mechanical and chemical recycling.
ECOPICK: six-axis option, up to 8 kg per pick
PICVISA also presents the redesigned ECOPICK, its robotic picking system combining AI vision (near-infrared or NIR, RGB imaging and deep learning) with robotics. Previously available only with a delta robot, ECOPICK can now be configured with a six-axis anthropomorphic robot offering extended reach, a better approach angle for more precise recovery, and a load capacity of up to 8 kg, which broadens the range of recoverable materials. The new design makes adding a second robot to the same line more straightforward and improves maintenance access, reducing intervention times and increasing equipment availability.
Italy: PICVISA’s fastest-growing textile market
Italy has become the market where PICVISA’s textile technology is growing fastest. The first ECOSORT machine installed in the country is in operation at Esposito Rewear. Two further projects are currently under installation: a turnkey plant for A2A integrating ECOSORT, ECOCLIP and a baling press, engineered and built within PICVISA’s industrial ecosystem, and the Dr Tex line, which will combine ECOSORT with Girbau’s robotic feeding system in the same configuration already operating in Northern Europe. Once commissioned, expected in [date], PICVISA will have three textile plants in Italy.
Regulator-Cetrisa: magnetic separation for emerging streams such as photovoltaics
Regulator-Cetrisa, a manufacturer with over 40 years of experience in magnetic and metal separation (overband separators, magnetic drums and eddy current separators) and part of the same industrial ecosystem as PICVISA, will be present on the stand with a recent reference that points to where the sector is heading: its separation equipment is already operating in a plant treating end-of-life photovoltaic panels, one of the fastest-growing waste streams in Europe and one where metal recovery is decisive for process viability. By combining magnetic separation with AI optical sorting, PICVISA and Regulator-Cetrisa offer recycling plants a single point of contact from metal removal to fine sorting by composition, in established streams such as textiles as well as in new ones such as photovoltaics.
About PICVISA
PICVISA is a Barcelona-based technology company specialising in AI-driven optical sorting, machine vision and robotics for the recycling industry. Its equipment range (ECOSORT, ECOCLIP, ECOPICK, ECOPACK, ECOGLASS, ECOFLAKE and ECOFLOW) operates in textile, plastics, glass and metals plants across Europe, the Americas and Asia. PICVISA was a finalist in the Innovation in Recycling Technology category at the Textiles Recycling Awards 2026. More at picvisa.com.
