Hands Free! Finland Launches Infrared Sensor Technology To Classify Waste Textiles

Finland recycling company LSJH, the University of Applied Sciences, and Spectrum engine, a material sensor equipment manufacturer, recently launched a project to automatically classify waste textiles using infrared sensing technology. LSJH is currently commissioning a processing plant to promote the application of this waste textile recovery technology.

Jaakko Z, a LSJH project engineer, said that the identification technology based on infrared sensors is very common in the classification of plastic packaging, but it is an innovation in textile recycling. At present, the classification of waste textiles in the market is mainly in manual operation.

　　 The goal of LSJH is to establish a facility that can use new infrared sensors to process all the waste textiles and foreign textile wastes in Finland. So far, waste textiles in Finland and other parts of Europe are manually classified. This means that environmental workers check fabric labels to identify different kinds of materials. However, labels may be inaccurate and sometimes even lost. For industries that use recycled fiber to produce new products, it is impossible to determine the raw materials used to become a thorny problem.

LSJH said in a statement that the optical recognition technology being developed will improve the reliability of fiber recognition, and will help ensure the production of higher quality recycled textiles.

Sini Ilmonen, a LSJH project leader and recycling economy expert, said that textile recycling could only create economic benefits only if recycled fibers were better applied to new products and put on the market. Therefore, it is very important to find enterprises wishing to develop new products with recycled fibers.

It is understood that the fund of the waste textile processing plant built by LSJH is provided by the relevant government departments in Finland. In addition, Business Finland, Finland's public financing agency, donated 1 million 500 thousand euros to promote the project.