ZHANGJIAGANG — Shanhesheng Environmental Technology Ltd. installed an AI-powered textile sorting machine called Fastsort-Textile at its recycling facility in Zhangjiagang, China, in 2025. The machine, created by DataBeyond, uses an AI scanner to read textile composition and sort garments by their fiber types for recycling.

The scanner measures 5 by 2 meters and operates alongside conveyor belts, emitting a hissing sound while analyzing each garment's composition. It takes less than one second to read a single item's material makeup. A live video feed on the scanner's side displays the composition readings as items pass through the system.

After scanning, textiles are transported to designated nylon and polyester sorting areas for recycling. Items that fall below customers' composition benchmarks are directed to a separate area for incineration or landfill disposal.

The machine sorts through 100 kilograms of clothes in two to three minutes, a task that takes a worker approximately four hours to complete manually. At full capacity, the Fastsort-Textile can process two tons of clothes per hour. Two workers would need two days to sort two tons of clothes and would achieve lower accuracy, according to analysis by Shanhesheng.

Prior to the machine's installation, up to 50% of processed textiles at the facility were deemed unrecyclable and sent to landfills or incinerated. With the Fastsort-Textile in operation, that figure decreased to 30%.

"This sort of thing saves money on labor costs, it saves time. When people sort materials, they can't tell accurately if it's 80 or 90% polyester. This machine rarely makes mistakes," said Cui Peng, sales manager at Shanhesheng.

"Now, though machines are already capable of sorting, people's energy is limited. People can't work for 24 hours straight, so robots may take over the roles in the end. The ultimate goal is a 'dark factory' with the robots running 24 hours," said Li Bin, sales director at Shanhesheng.

"We can make full use of textile waste and reduce the amount that is incinerated which will be a great help to recycling resources," said Mo Zhuoya, CEO of DataBeyond. The company was founded in 2018, and the Fastsort-Textile was named one of Time magazine's Best Inventions of 2025.

China generates the largest share of textile waste globally. China led global textile exports at $142 billion, more than double that of the European Union, according to the WTO Key Insights and Trends 2025 report. Synthetic textiles, which are derived from fossil fuels and are a low-cost option for fashion production, account for around 70% of global textile production, according to a report from Circle Economy.