WEBVTT

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Hi, I’m John Roberts. I’m Director of
Innovation and Circularity at Roberts

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Group International. And today we’re very
excited to talk you through some of the

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features of the latest AI sorting
technology which we have recently invested in.

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There are a number of reasons why we chose
this machine over similar machines.

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There’s plenty of features that we’re
excited to tell you about today.

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It’s going to be modelled by
Head of Tech, Shan.

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And some of the features we’re going to reserve
till after we’ve had a successful trial.

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The automatic sorting space is an industry
that we’ve been watching over the last decade or so.

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When we acquired this facility, we knew that
a certain proportion of it was going to be

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reserved for a development which, as yet,
hadn’t come to the market.

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And now we feel like, if trials and pilots
are successful, this could be that technology.

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One of the hardest topics in our industry is,
of course, fibre-to-fibre recycling.

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So any machine that’s in this space will be judged
on how it recycles non-rewearable textiles.

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This does have an NIR sorting aspect to it.

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However, what’s most exciting about this machine
is it combines it with AI technology.

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So it can also look for disruptors—maybe it’s
multiple materials, not just a monofibre—

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and then it can decide the most appropriate
recycling route,

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which in the future could be fibre-to-fibre recycling,
although we know that that’s still in development,

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especially in the UK.

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One of the features which I know has got Shan
really excited is the level of data

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that we’re going to be able to produce with this machine,
because Shan is often tasked with producing

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the reports for our brand partners. And now
we’re going to be able to tell them exactly

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where their material went after it left us.
So we’ll be able to give a full breakdown

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and a level of transparency and detail
that just couldn’t be done before.

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During a recent conversation with one of our partners,
we heard of their plans to introduce RFID tags,

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which are being spoken about as a potential way
of having digital product passports.

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So this machine’s actually been future-proofed because,
if that system is adopted, we’ll be able to read the tags

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and eventually upload information at the same time.

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One of the features which I am personally most excited about
is a topic that is rarely spoken about in our industry,

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and it’s economical repairs. So if an item
has a high value, but it has maybe a small rip,

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then that is a category which we can sort for,
and we can send it to be repaired in the UK

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and contribute to the circular economy.

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While we are in the pilot stage, we’re actually
inviting down any brand or retailer that’s interested

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to find out the data about their customer returns
or excess stock.

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Put the machine to the test. Come down,
see how it works, see the factory, see the setup,

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and see how we can help you
with your sustainability goals.