16-01-2026

Something big is coming to recycling plants

For years, the success of a recycling plant relied heavily on the experience of its operators, on skills built over decades, finely tuned machines, and fast reactions to maintenance issues as they occurred. This way of working was effective and reliable. Until now. Today, the recycling industry is facing fundamental change, and with it unprecedented pressure. Pressure that can no longer be managed manually.

Purity standards, material traceability, and regulatory requirements are tightening. Compliance is no longer optional. At the same time, these changes are happening faster than most plants and operators can realistically keep up with.

There is also a growing paradox: skilled labor is becoming harder to find, while input materials are becoming more complex. Experienced operators are scarce, and many plants depend on decisions made by only a few key individuals. Even the most skilled among them struggle with today’s material streams containing composite packaging, multilayer materials, bio-plastics, and black plastics. Manual adjustments that once worked simply cannot keep pace with this variability. One person cannot continuously optimize dozens of machines, recipes, and shifts. And when that expert leaves, performance often drops right away.

AI, data collection, and advanced analytics are often seen as the answer. Yet in most plants, even when data is being collected, it almost never turns into actionable insight. Operators still lack transparency, measurable performance, and systems that explain why something happened, not just show that it happened.

Something big is coming to recycling plants. The next chapter of recycling will be powered by intelligence built into every decision.

To be continued…