PET Purification with AI-powered Sorting | Bottle-to-Bottle Recycling

5 Mar 2025  |
Recycling post-consumer PET bottles into high-quality, food-grade material for bottle-to-bottle recycling requires exceptional purification. That’s where TOMRA’s GAINnext™ comes in – an AI-powered sorting solution designed to maximize PET purity and unlock new revenue opportunities for recyclers.

What is GAINnext™?

GAINnext™ is a deep learning-based add-on for TOMRA’s industry-leading AUTOSORT™ units. Thanks to its integrated deep learning software, it identifies hard-to-classify objects, reducing the need for manual sorting.

By leveraging artificial intelligence, GAINnext™ can instantly identify and remove over 92% of opaque objects from PET streams. This ensures a higher purity of transparent and light blue PET, meeting the stringent requirements for food-grade recycling.

Sorting based on visual information

Traditional sorting systems struggle to remove hard-to-detect objects like opaque bottles, polyester fabrics, and multilayered foils, leading to contamination in the recycling process.

GAINnext™ efficiently remove opaque white bottles, polyester textiles, and plastic foil to significantly improving PET purification levels. The system also enhances hit rates for hard-to-eject and multilayered foils, allowing recyclers to recover more valuable materials and reduce waste.

Advantages of GAINnext™

  • Increase sorting efficiency and accuracy

  • Enhance the purity of food-grade PET fractions

  • Unlock new revenue streams from opaque PET bottles

  • Contribute to a more sustainable and circular economy

Ready to optimize your PET sorting process and boost profitability?

Share this article

This article is published by

TOMRA Recycling’s pioneering industry expertise continues to result in state-of-the-art machines and exceptional service within the waste and metal recycling industries. Our goal: support our customers to optimize their sustainability and operational value. Our method:...

Related Articles