TLDR: Tetra Pak has made a significant investment in artificial intelligence-powered optical sorting technology, developed by British startup Recycleye, to revolutionize the recycling of food and beverage cartons in the UK. The first system, known as Recycleye QuantiSort, has been successfully installed at Cumbria Waste Management’s facility in Carlisle, marking a crucial step towards enhancing the purity and efficiency of carton recycling ahead of new UK government policies.
Tetra Pak, the global food processing and packaging solutions leader, has announced a landmark investment in advanced AI-powered optical sorting technology, set to transform the recycling landscape for food and beverage cartons across the United Kingdom. This initiative, a collaboration with British technology startup Recycleye, sees the deployment of the innovative Recycleye QuantiSort system, with its inaugural installation at Cumbria Waste Management’s materials recycling facility (MRF) in Carlisle.
The Recycleye QuantiSort system represents a significant leap forward in recycling efficiency. It leverages a combination of artificial intelligence and high-definition cameras to precisely identify food and beverage cartons within mixed waste streams. Once detected, pneumatic valves swiftly eject the cartons, ensuring their separation for appropriate recycling. Tetra Pak reports that this cutting-edge system achieves an impressive purity rate of over 98% for sorted cartons, far surpassing the capabilities of traditional sorting methods and offering more efficient training capabilities.
This technological upgrade is poised to substantially increase Cumbria Waste Management’s capacity for processing food and beverage cartons. The Carlisle facility serves a vast region across North West England, including areas under Cumberland Council and Westmorland & Furness Council, as well as parts of Scotland, making its enhanced capabilities critical for regional recycling efforts.
Victor Dewulf, Co-founder and CEO of Recycleye, expressed pride in the collaboration, stating, “We are proud to collaborate with Tetra Pak and Cumbria Waste to deliver Recycleye QuantiSort for bulk recovery of food and beverage cartons, using a cutting-edge AI optical sorter innovation. This project demonstrates the capability of AI to detect and recover items such as food and beverage cartons, offering MRFs a flexible technology to adapt to changing material streams.”
This installation at Cumbria Waste Management is the second of three planned upgrades under Tetra Pak’s substantial £1.4 million investment program for UK sorting infrastructure in 2025. The first facility to benefit was J&B Recycling in Hartlepool, which received two robotic sorting arms, also developed by Recycleye, in May. The location of the third facility to receive support will be announced later this year.
These UK-specific investments are part of Tetra Pak’s broader global commitment, which involves allocating over £34 million annually towards enhancing collection, sorting, and recycling infrastructure for food and beverage cartons worldwide. Specifically, £2.4 million has been earmarked for the development of UK carton sorting facilities.
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The timing of these investments is strategic, aligning with the upcoming UK government’s ‘Simpler Recycling’ policy, set to be implemented in March 2026. This new legislation will mandate that all households in England have access to kerbside carton recycling. Businesses in England have already faced similar requirements since March 2025, necessitating separate collection of designated recyclable materials. Tetra Pak has actively supported the development of this policy, anticipating a significant increase in kerbside collected cartons, thereby underscoring the urgent need for advanced sorting technologies at UK recycling facilities. Awantika Chadha, sustainability manager for Tetra Pak UK, highlighted the importance of this collaboration, hoping it will “act as a blueprint for the upgrade of food and beverage carton sorting capabilities across the UK.”
