CETIA is a new centre dedicated to textile recycling which has just been inaugurated in Hendaye in the south of France, as a subsidiary of research organisations CETI and ESTIA

Leveraging automation, robotics and artificial intelligence, its aim is to build efficient systems to make recycling operations competitive.

Its work will involve prototyping concepts with the aim of removing technological barriers and establishing their technical feasibility on an industrial scale, developing pilot lines and launching pre-production runs. It will further transfer core competence and skills for the implementation of solutions at customer sites.

The 1,200-square-metre CETIA site at Hendaye is equipped with a Valvan Fibersort machine for sorting waste textiles by both composition and colour into ten separate bins, using NIR and RGB technologies, with a throughput of a garment each second.

Two Dell’Orco and Villani openers and a cleaning willow with a capacity of 600kg per hour are further in place for the separation of fibres and trims from waste garments.

A proprietary system for the separation and sorting of shoes is also being developed as part of the Re-Shoes project, using robotics to remove glued, sewn, injected or vulcanised soles at a rate of 120 shoes per hour to date.

CETIA is supported by a number of brands, including Decathlon and Zalando, and has received €900,000 from eco-organisation Refashion to fund projects, along with almost €1m million from the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.

www.cetia.tech