Inside the Wellington MRF Retrofit: From Manual Sorting to AI-Powered Optical Sorting
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
When a Wellington Material Recovery Facility decided it was time to move beyond manual container sorting, they turned to Alchemy for a turnkey retrofit — and the result is one of our clearest demonstrations yet of what SureSort can do.
The challenge
The facility was relying on manual sorters to pick containers off the line by hand — labour-intensive, inconsistent on busy days, and a ceiling on how much volume the site could realistically take on. They needed a way to lift both throughput and purity, without the cost or footprint of an oversized automation build.
The solution: SureSort with auger-based hoppers
Alchemy designed and installed a turnkey upgrade built around our SureSort lanes, featuring an auger-based hopper system that singulates and feeds material into each lane for the AI vision system to identify and sort. The result is a fully automated, vision-based container sorting line in place of the manual process — sorting at a speed and consistency hand-sorting simply can't match.
Because it's a closed-loop container line, recyclables that would previously have drifted into the waste stream are now being captured and recovered.
The results
Enhanced recovery — the closed-loop design means far less leakage of valuable recyclables into waste, directly improving both environmental and economic outcomes.
Increased throughput — the facility can now process meaningfully larger volumes without sacrificing sort quality.
Reduced manual labour — automating the container line cut the need for manual handling, improving both efficiency and workplace safety.
Purity maintained — SureSort consistently performs to the high purity levels the facility required.
Alchemy also provides ongoing service and support for the installed system, so the facility isn't just getting a one-off upgrade — it's getting a system designed to stay at peak performance over its working life.
Why it matters
Optical sorting automation has been available to large MRFs for years. What's changed is that systems like SureSort now make that same level of automation accessible to a much wider range of facilities — including Wellington's — without requiring the footprint or budget of a mega-MRF build. Wellington is a strong example of what's possible when automation is engineered to fit the facility, rather than asking the facility to fit the automation.
Want to know if a SureSort retrofit could work for your facility? Get in touch and we can walk through what a turnkey upgrade would look like for your site.
