EcoSort - Innovative textile recycling with smart robotics

Today, the sorting of collected clothes is largely done manually, which is both costly and involves heavy, monotonous tasks. At the same time, the amount of textiles collected is increasing sharply in connection with new laws from the EU, and society is facing major challenges in managing this in a sustainable way.
In the project, we will develop a robotic system that can recognize and handle mixed materials, e.g, clothes, shoes, bags and toys, and decide whether they should be sorted out immediately (for example, inappropriate items) or proceed for valuation and various reuses in the textile value chain. This first phase of the sorting chain is very demanding as it involves large volumes with varying content, but it is crucial to enable efficient reuse later in the process.