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Once plastic packaging has been shredded into flakes, a new sorting challenge begins – one that is increasingly critical to producing recycled plastic of a quality that brands are willing to use.
Most plastics recycling starts with whole packaging – bottles, tubs, films – sorted by container type. But after that initial sort, the plastic is typically shredded into flakes for washing and reprocessing, and it's at this flake stage that a second, finer sorting step is increasingly being applied to improve the purity of the final recycled material.
Regulatory targets for recycled content in new packaging, particularly for PET bottles, have created strong demand for high-purity recycled plastic – and that demand is driving investment in the more sophisticated sorting technology needed to meet it. Flake sorting sits at the centre of this investment, since it's often the step that determines whether recycled material meets food-grade purity requirements.
At the flake stage, contamination can come from several sources – different polymer types mixed in during the initial sort, coloured flakes mixed with clear material, or non-PET components like caps and labels that survive shredding. Flake sorting systems address this by identifying and removing these contaminants at a scale and speed that wasn't possible when sorting was limited to whole containers.
Optical sorting at the flake level relies on high-speed sensors and ejectors working at a much finer resolution than container-level sorting – identifying and removing individual flakes based on colour, polymer type, or both. This level of precision is what allows recyclers to produce streams pure enough for demanding applications like food-contact packaging, where even small amounts of contamination can disqualify an entire batch.
PICVISA's optical sorting technology, including the ECOPACK range, brings this flake-level sorting capability to recycling facilities aiming to produce higher-grade recycled plastic. As demand for recycled content continues to grow – driven by both regulation and brand commitments – the ability to deliver flake streams that meet increasingly strict purity requirements is becoming a key differentiator for plastics recyclers.
Get in touch with our team to discover how PICVISA's optical sorting and robotics solutions can fit your recycling operation.