Who is TOMRA?
So, you know that TOMRA provides reverse vending machines to collect drink containers for recycling, but did you know that TOMRA does even more things that help to enable a world without waste? Let’s have a look at how TOMRA enhances recycling, optimizes mining, and ensures that the food we serve our family and friends are of the best quality.
TOMRA is leading the resource revolution by transforming how society obtains, uses and reuses the planet’s precious resources. This is achieved through state-of-the-art sensor-based technology, the common factor that brings together the organization’s different streams of business. Check out below all the awesome ways that TOMRA is enabling a world without waste.
TOMRA Collection
Littering beverage containers can be harmful to the environment, as can producing more containers. When bottles and cans don't end up in the right place, they can cause pollution in the sea or waste in landfills that can take hundreds of years to break down. Additionally, if drink containers do not get recycled, virgin materials must be used to produce new containers. This means more resources are taken from the Earth and more harmful greenhouse gases are emitted every time new containers are manufactured.
TOMRA provides the technology to make sure the containers go to where they are supposed to go—to recycling! Consumers return their empty drink containers to our reverse vending machines, to ensure they get recycled and typically to get back the deposit refund they paid when buying their beverage. But we cannot do it alone. We aim to transform society’s habits and we need YOUR help to gather up all those empty bottles and cans to keep them in the loop of use and reuse! The more we collect, the more we do for the planet!
Did you know? TOMRA collects 40 billion drink containers and contributes to preventing the emissions of about 4.5 million tons of greenhouse gases each year!
TOMRA Recycling
Daily household waste and commercial waste products that are made of materials such glass, plastic, metals, and other materials cannot be used as compost nor directly recycled in factories. TOMRA provides the machinery for material recovery facilities that scan, recover, and sort which materials can be forwarded for recycling. We can sort municipal solid waste, metals, electronic waste, paper materials and even wood! If these waste products do not get systematically sorted, they will only end up in landfill, where some items can take hundreds of years to decompose. Furthermore, industrial manufacturers will need to extract more resources from the Earth if they need to produce new products from virgin raw materials, instead of recycled materials.
For those reasons, TOMRA Recycling’s machines help recover and sort materials according to the color and/or the type of material, so that industrial manufacturers can use them as resources to produce new products. We aim to transform the recovery of valuable resources from waste. The more materials that are sorted and recycled, the less waste and the less we take from the planet.
Did you know? More than 8400 TOMRA Recycling sensor-based sorting machines have been installed in more than 100 countries worldwide!
TOMRA Mining
Everything in our daily life comes from somewhere: if it did not grow, it was mined. TOMRA Mining has the technologies to make mining more environmentally friendly and less wasteful, by separating the mineral ores from rocks. With the efficiency of these machines, we can make sure that only the purest of the minerals are taken, and what is not needed is returned to the earth. Mining companies need to find ways to maximize the efficiency of their operations to cut back on the use of water and other resources, while reducing waste and the total impact on the environment. The mining industry consumes 2-3% of the world’s energy, the same amount of energy used by the entire airline industry.
TOMRA Mining’s sorting machines can help reduce the energy consumption of the mining process by up to 50% and reduce the amount of water used by three to four cubic meters per ton of ore. Our main goal is to transform how we recover our essential natural resources, resulting in significant reduction in the environmental impacts of mining operations, and bring the dual benefits of greater sustainability and better productivity, as well as reduce the carbon footprint. Our sorters can decrease energy, water, and chemical consumption per product material.
Did you know? In 2015, TOMRA XRT sorting equipment recovered the world’s largest diamond in over 100 years, at Lucara Diamonds’ Karowe Mine in Botswana!
TOMRA Food
TOMRA Food uses the best technology to ensure that the fruits, vegetables, and meat products (and even candy!) that you buy from your grocery stores and supermarkets are of the best quality. We work to transform the food industry into one that creates sustainable value, by making sure that “Every Resource Counts”.
TOMRA Food’s machines have multiple super-sensors that can inspect every piece of food, making sure they are fresh and free of contaminants and impurities. They can even detect invisible toxins and sneaky carcinogens that can be harmful to our long-term health! Upon machine inspection, the best-quality food pieces are automatically and systematically separated from the rest, before they are packed and shipped to your local grocery stores or food processing factories. This ensures that the food products that reach the grocery shelves have a higher chance of being bought and served at your dining tables. TOMRA Food’s equipment even helps with the processing of potato chips and French fries! The TOMRA steam peeling machines can effectively and safely peel potatoes, while retaining the maximum amount of the potato flesh. This results in reduced food waste, drives efficiency, and saves energy!
Did you know? TOMRA Food sorting machines can even scan and measure the sugar content of apples!
