AI Machine Revolutionizes China's Textile Recycling

A Chinese AI company's Fastsort-Textile machine sorts 100 kilograms of clothes in two to three minutes — a task that takes a human worker four hours. Named one of Time magazine's Best Inventions of 2025, the machine scans textile composition in under a second and processes two tons per hour with greater accuracy than human sorters. Currently deployed at one recycling facility in Zhangjiagang, the machine has reduced unrecyclable textile waste from 50% to 30%. China is the world's leading textile exporter and polluter, making the technology significant in the global fight against synthetic textile waste.