Part of the Norwegian engineering firm Tomra Group, TiTech has already sold 57 of its optical sorting systems to the UK.
The new company, TiTech Visionsort Ltd, will also build on the increasing need for quality recovered materials from commingled collections, it said.
Jonathan Clarke, who is heading up the UK operation, said: “Quality of recyclate and eliminating contamination are major issues for the UK's recycling industry – not only within the domestic market, but also on the world stage. The UK also has the added pressure of meeting its landfill diversion targets. In practical terms this means recovering more types of recyclate in higher volumes and at higher levels of purity from the waste stream.
“This is where TiTech technology comes in because it enables companies to sort waste to a much higher degree of accuracy and with greater recovery rates than other methods,” Mr Clarke said.
He added: “It is no accident that we experienced our best ever year in the UK during 2006 and all indications are that we will double our performance this year.”
Development
TiTech claims a 70% share of the world market for this type of optical separation technology, and has initially applied its systems to plastics and paper sorting facilities.
The company is now developing the systems for use handling municipal solid waste, waste electronics, commercial and industrial waste and also construction and demolition wastes.
Its near-infrared optical systems use scanning sensors to identify materials by their shapes, textures and colours before different materials are blown into different chutes by compressed air blasts.
The systems are in use at 19 sites around the UK, including the Veolia Environmental Services MRFs in Sheffield, Hampshire and Greenwich as well as Grosvenor's MRF in Kent.
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