RWM recap: AI’s real-world impact at KSI and Cheshire West Recycling

At RWM this year, conversations on AI waste analytics moved beyond potential with operators sharing how it’s already boosting profits, cutting inefficiencies, and even serving as a tool for staff motivation and recruitment.

Panel: What AI saw that we didn’t: An operator’s perspective on waste intelligence

Our Business Development Lead Matthew Steventon was joined by two operational experts who have seen Greyparrot Analyzer transform their operations:

• Jody Sherratt is the Operations Director at Cheshire West Recycling, managing collections and reprocessing for over 168,000 households with 440K/week refuse and recycling collections. 
  
  
• Foppe-Jan de Meer is a Plant Manager at the Netherlands’ KSI Recycling, processing 65,000 tonnes of plastic every year.

Despite operating in different countries, Jody and Foppe-Jan have made a similar discovery: there are inefficiencies and material losses that even trained staff can’t spot, but AI can.

They told Matthew that this visibility into the plant has fundamentally changed the way they run their operations - helping them maximise profits while other businesses are seeing revenue drop.

Why KSI and Cheshire West Recycling adopted AI

The Cheshire West team deployed an Analyzer unit just one week after seeing the system in action at last year’s RWM conference. For Jody, adopting AI waste analytics was a natural step aligned with the business’s focus on operational efficiency:

We don’t see ourselves as a waste company. We’re a logistics company: like Amazon in reverse, we’re picking things up. If we’re processing 40,000 tonnes a year, we need to optimise our operations as much as we can."

Jody Sherratt, Cheshire West Recycling

As the CIO of Re-Gen, Conor McCooey has been with us at the forefront of AI waste analytics, and seen that same evolution firsthand:For KSI, too, sorting efficiency is directly tied to profitability. Initially, Foppe-Jan adopted Analyzer with compliance in mind:

We essentially work for the government. If our output doesn’t meet their specifications, we get penalised. That’s why we started monitoring residue first, to understand what we were losing."

Foppe-Jan, KSI Recycling

It didn’t take long for the KSI team to spot AI’s potential beyond that initial use-case. Today, they have seven units installed across their facility, with plans to install three more to cover every output stream.

Operations leaders don’t adopt tools that quickly or comprehensively if it’s not making a measurable efficiency improvement. Matthew dove deeper to understand why Foppe-Jan and Jody are so enthusiastic about AI waste analytics.

Optimising processes in real time

For both operators, real-time insight into material flows has proven transformational.

Jody manages a small team of sorters, and needs to ensure he’s using limited picking resources to maximum effect. Cheshire West now uses live data to match staffing to incoming material, avoiding both under- and over-resourcing:

Just because a belt is running doesn’t mean there’s anything on it. Some hours it’s empty, and without live data we may not have known that until it was too late. Now we can align staffing to material as it comes in, instead of relying on guesswork."

Jody Sherratt, Cheshire West Recycling

Jody also plans to use AI to build a business case for infrastructure investment. As a local authority trading company, Cheshire West Recycling needs to prove the return-on-investment of any major spend:

I could be losing £100,000 of aluminium on a plastics line. A new eddy separator is a major investment for a council, but if I have data to support that, it’s suddenly a no-brainer."

Jody Sherratt, Cheshire West Recycling

At KSI, sorting runs around-the-clock to keep up with huge amounts of infeed material. Access to 24/7 performance data has helped Foppe-Jan and his team balance maintenance with productivity, and has already led to a 10% recovery boost:

Normally it takes a week before we know something’s slipping. Now we see it immediately and change machine settings during recovery. Simple performance tests on variables like machinery cleaning have already helped us recover 10% more material, and kept us compliant."

Foppe-Jan de Meer, KSI Recycling

Reducing today’s manual sampling, and replacing tomorrow’s

Despite operating in different countries, both KSI and Cheshire West Recycling face sampling requirements that are time-consuming and expensive. Unsurprisingly, the panelists are already beginning to automate the process with AI:

Today, it takes four people a week to get composition data for some streams. Analyzer can now do that for us. We are working on a project to share that data with regulators, and I think automated sampling will be in place within the next few years."

Foppe-Jan de Meer, KSI Recycling

Jody agreed, and highlighted the fact that more detailed compliance sampling would also enable his team to charge a premium for higher-purity bales:

Sampling requirements are very onerous. My dream is to have a level of full transparency where we bale material and stick a label on it that details its full composition. That way, we can also be sure we charge what it’s worth. It’s got real value from both a financial and regulatory point of view."

Jody Sherratt, Cheshire West Recycling

Protecting profits in a challenging business environment

The threat of low-cost recyclate and virgin plastic imports was a common theme at RWM 2025. With many recyclers struggling to compete with uncertified recycled material arriving from overseas, Jody credited AI-driven efficiency gains with protecting profits:

It’s helped us stop prices coming down, which other businesses have struggled to do. We’ve probably seen it come down less than other people because we’re better able to prove what’s in our bales."

Jody Sherratt, Cheshire West Recycling

Foppe-Jan agreed, saying that efficiency improvements have helped KSI continue to supply high-quality material:

It’s the same for us. We’re seeing the quality of our sorting improve, and that leaves us with more to sell than some of our competitors."

Foppe-Jan de Meer, KSI Recycling

How innovative operators plan to use AI next

Despite the real impact Analyzer has already made on their operations, both Jody and Foppe-Jan believe they’re at the beginning of a bigger transformation project.

As a local authority trading company, Cheshire West Recycling manages both collections and reprocessing. With detailed data on material arriving from specific areas, Jody sees an opportunity to engage the households they serve:

This gives us a chance to create targeted campaigns around things like batteries, which caused a fire at our facility last week. We’re now able to analyse material on a local level, and we can tell that a certain area sends more electrical waste than others. There’s also huge scope when it comes to designing new facilities. I think designing sorting operations around AI systems will become more commonplace."

Jody Sherratt, Cheshire West Recycling

Foppe-Jan also has his sights set on the next generation of facilities, viewing AI as a vital enabler of fully-automated sorting operations:

There are so many possibilities, and we’re at the beginning of this journey. We have plans for more autonomous steering of the facility in the future, with AI adjusting machinery directly."

Foppe-Jan de Meer, KSI Recycling

Attracting a new generation of operators with AI

Jody and Foppe-Jan are in the first generation of waste professionals to deploy AI in recovery facilities. Together with other innovative operators, they are experimenting with an exciting technology to create completely new ways of working with waste.

Younger people looking for a career path have noticed. For Foppe-Jan, AI is making waste management a more attractive place to work, and may help overcome the persistent challenge of attracting young talent:

It’s not only about analyzing performance or equipment. Waste management is not very sexy, and the average age is high. We need something to keep younger people employed at our site, and with AI, we can attract younger people who are really eager to work with us because we have this technology. In that way, the benefits aren’t even about the data, but bringing motivated and talented people into this industry."

Foppe-Jan de Meer, KSI Recycling

Real-time waste data isn’t just making its impact on individual facilities. Direct from control rooms in the UK, Netherlands and beyond, waste intelligence is change the face of facility operations — and entire industries.

Read more about AI’s impact at real-world facilities here.