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AI-Powered Textile Machine in China Offers Breakthrough in Waste Recycling

Fastsort-Textile, named one of Time's Best Inventions of 2025, is revolutionizing recycling in Zhangjiagang, China. Created by DataBeyond, the machine uses artificial intelligence to scan and sort used clothing by fiber composition.
Textile waste is a major global pollutant, with China leading exports at $142 billion. Previously, manual sorting was slow and inaccurate, as workers struggled to distinguish between 80% and 90% polyester content in discarded materials.
Processing 100 kilograms of clothes takes just two to three minutes, compared to four hours for a worker. This shift reduces unrecyclable textiles sent to landfills from 50% down to 30%.
Shanhesheng Environmental Technology Ltd. installed the system in 2025 to optimize its facility. Shanhesheng Sales Manager Cui Peng stated the technology "rarely makes mistakes," drastically reducing labor costs and time.
DataBeyond CEO Mo Zhuoya envisions a "dark factory" where robots operate 24 hours daily. This innovation demonstrates how AI could substantially mitigate the environmental impact of synthetic textiles derived from fossil fuels.

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Meet China's AI-powered recycling robot that sorts 220 pounds of clothes in 2 to 3 minutes

In an industrial park in Zhangjiagang, a small city on China’s east coast, a large humming and hissing machine feeds on piles of used clothes and sorts them. The novelty? It uses artificial intelligence to sort them by composition at high speed, offering a glimpse into how AI could play a role in reducing the impact of synthetic textile waste. The Fastsort-Textile machine, named one of Time magazine’s Best Inventions of 2025, was created by Data…

9 hours ago·New York, United States

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