The plant, which has a capacity of 8 tonnes per hour, is the first of its kind capable of sorting six different types of paper products, including multilayer materials. Its innovative layout, compact design, and advanced automation meet Iren’s demand for operational flexibility, capacity, reliability, and quality output, delivering a solution adapted to both current and future requirements.
The Collegno plant stands out as a technological milestone in paper and cardboard recycling. It is the first facility to separate six different types of paper-based output materials within a single sorting line: large cardboard, deinking paper, white paper, fine paper, multilayer material with aluminium, and multilayer without aluminium.
The process starts with dosing and mechanical separation using Stadler’s double-deck PPK2000 and STT2000 ballistic separators, which sort out large cardboard and fine material, respectively. Medium-sized material, containing various types of paper, then progresses to six Pellenc ST COMPACT+ optical sorters that utilise Near Infrared (NIR) and visible spectroscopy and are equipped with CNS BRAIN, the company’s latest AI integrated software, to identify the different types of paper.
Each fraction undergoes a manual quality control and automatic composition analysis before being baled and stored. The system also includes direct bypasses and flexible feeding options to accommodate variations in input and demand, aligning the plant’s design with the evolving dynamics of the recovered paper market.
One of the major challenges of the Collegno project was to build the new plant within the confines of an existing building. Stadler completed the dismantling of the old facility in just three weeks, followed by a three-month mechanical assembly, two-month electrical installation, and one-month commissioning – all delivered on schedule.
