Laser sensing technology that can distinguish between six different kinds of plastics has been jointly developed by IDEC (European office: Hamburg / Germany; www.idec.com) and PARC (the Photonics Advanced Research Center at Osaka University / Japan). The optical technology, which uses reflections from lasers of five different wavelengths, has been combined with robot technology from Mitsubishi Electric Engineering (MEE, Tokyo / Japan; www.mitsubishi.com) to develop what is claimed to be the first plastic sorting robot. The machine can sort PE and PP, which are not distinguishable by the human eye and respectively account for 23% and 22% of plastics production.

IDEC, MEE and Osaka University are currently carrying out testing for the project with two cooperative stores in Japan. The work is supported by the Japanese ministry of economy, trade and industry and is expected to reduce CO₂ emission greatly by paving the way for recycling many kinds of plastics. IDEC hopes to commercialise a smaller version of the sorting system, which will be sold at around EUR 40,000.