The Circular Plastic is a new plant of the Iren Group for plastic sorting and storage in Borgaro Torinese, in the province of Turin. The plant will process every year 110 thousands tons of plastic, the 80% of which will reportedly be recycled. The remaining part and the non-plastic materials will be used for energy production.
Circular Plastic itself was born from a circular economy. Indeed, it is the result of the redeveloping of a former plant for organic waste disposal. The recovery and revamping lasted three years and equipped the structure with 130 conveyor belts and 22 optical readers. They will make it possible to divide up to 17 types of plastics and polymers. These materials will arrive from the separate collection of plastic, both mono and multi-material, and from pre-selection facilities located in Northern Italy.
The innovative technologies put in place by the Iren Group will allow to recover a high quantity of plastic and obtain new quality raw materials. The incoming materials will be subject to a meticulous optical and dimensional selection. The plant will sift the smallest waste in search of portions of recyclable packaging. It will divide the medium waste into rigid and flexible products. It will also sort the PET bottles by color.
In addition, the plant will host a trial of the European ReBioCycle project. Here, robotic systems will try to select bioplastics through artificial intelligence algorithms.
