Penn Waste has announced plans to add technology and capacity to the company’s 35-ton-per-hour (tph) single stream recycling system housed in the company’s 96,000-sq.-ft. Manchester, Pa., materials recovery facility (MRF).

Eugene, Ore.-based Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) designed, engineered, manufactured and installed the advanced processing line in 2015, and will provide the $3.5 million retrofit. Expected to be operational in August of this year, the new and improved system will increase throughput to more than 45 tph and improve material purity.

As part of the planned retrofit, Penn Waste will invest in Max-AI technology to improve container line performance. The Max-AI Autonomous QC (AQC) unit follows a new NRT SpydIR optical sorter targeting PET plastics. Max-AI technology uses artificial intelligence to identify non-PET items for the AQC to pick and return to the container line’s onset. In addition to the Max-AI AQC, Penn Waste is adding three new NRT optical sorters and a NRT MetalDirector, and also just recently added a Nihot SDS 800-i to clean larger volumes of glass.

The new container line will feature optical detection and recovery of three-dimensional fiber, such as small packing from online purchases. Recovery and purity rates will increase thanks to the additional technology, including an optical sorter on the ‘last chance’ residue line to remove containers and metals. The optical sorters will also enable the automated separation of additional commodities, including PP, HDPE-C and HDPE-N.