TOMRA’s latest sorting technology achieves record purity for stainless steel

In Saint-Étienne, France, TRIMETAL has established itself in metal recycling. With the installation of TOMRA's new FINDER COLOR, the company has become one of the first to test this next-generation colour sorting technology under real-world conditions. The result: record purity for stainless steel, elimination of manual sorting, and flexibility to process other materials such as copper, brass and electronic boards.

TRIMETAL specializes in processing and recovery of ferrous and non-ferrous metals from complex waste streams: refuse derived fuel, glass, wood, incineration residues, mattress springs, pulper ropes, and more. 

Thanks to its expertise and the integration of top-tier sorting technologies, it has experienced rapid growth in recent years. With up to 14 employees, it generated approximately €4 million in revenue in 2024, with a stated goal to double that figure as early as next year. Pushing sorting capabilities to their full potential is central to the company's strategy, as is the integration of TOMRA's new FINDER COLOR — an advanced colour sorting solution with no comparable technology currently in operation on site.

Consistent stainless steel purity and access to critical metals 

Trimetal aimed to achieve a stainless steel fraction with over 98 percent purity — without relying on manual sorting. Stainless steel is generally considered difficult to clean, often contaminated by other metals. Producing consistent, homogeneous and clean output was a major challenge for the company to ensure competitiveness and profitability. 

Beyond stainless steel, the strategic goal is to secure access to critical and strategic metals in Europe — such as copper, brass, and even precious metals — to prevent scarcity caused by large-scale exports and to ensure full traceability in the recycling process.

FINDER COLOR at the heart of the optical sorting process

In 2025, TRIMETAL chose to install FINDER COLOR, TOMRA Recycling's latest innovation, a high-precision colour sorting system that supports a wide range of metal tasks such as recovering copper and brass from heavy metals, separating PCBs from e-scrap, and cleaning stainless steel. It combines an ultra-precise RGB camera with artificial intelligence (AI) to detect, separate, and sort each particle, even if they overlap or match the conveyor belt's colour. Sorting is based on colour, size and shape. 

At the TRIMETAL plant, the FINDER COLOR serves as the core of the optical sorting process. It complements TOMRA's FINDER unit, which was installed in 2021 and operates on a separate line with larger grain sizes to sort all metals and stainless steel. The other equipment — shredding, screening, and magnetic and eddy current separation — creates ideal material conditions to support high-performance sorting. The line's configuration allows for the processing of mixed materials that are typically considered difficult, supplying end users both within France and across the EU. The electromagnetic (EM) sensor that TRIMETAL chose to integrate into the TOMRA system further reduces plastic contamination by recovering all metals and enhancing precision in cables and stainless sorting.

FINDER COLOR stands out for its flexibility. The system allows seamless configuration in batch or continuous flow mode and rapid switching between material fractions. It can easily switch between sorting tasks, without needing to reconfigure the line. In addition to stainless steel, the system allows TRIMETAL to also recover high-value metals — enabling the company to adapt to future demands and seize new business opportunities. This versatility reflects TRIMETAL's core identity: the ability to process complex materials, maximize resource recovery, and return each material to its proper recovery stream.

Over 98 percent purity, reduced manual sorting, new commercial opportunities

With FINDER COLOR, TRIMETAL has achieved tangible outcomes: reaching purity targets, increasing throughput to handle higher volumes, significantly reducing manual sorting, maintaining consistently stable performance, and unlocking new business opportunities.

Thomas Santucci, co-founder and CEO of TRIMETAL, confirms: "With FINDER COLOR, we reach over 98 percent purity for stainless steel. We sort faster, process higher volumes, and save time every day. Our role goes beyond simple collection: we recover, refine, and reintegrate critical metals into European supply chains with stable, traceable performance. We're extremely satisfied with both the outcome and our collaboration with TOMRA, whose top-tier consultation and technology were instrumental to our success."

A forward-looking collaboration

By adopting FINDER COLOR, TRIMETAL has gained a strategic edge and expanded its competitive advantage, confirming its pioneering spirit to stay at the forefront of sorting technology. This collaboration perfectly illustrates how TOMRA's innovation aligns with recyclers' needs, maximizing metal recovery, improving sorting efficiency, and supporting business objectives. 

Damian Barnes, area sales manager, metals, at TOMRA Recycling, says: "TRIMETAL wanted a powerful yet flexible sorting system that reliably delivers high purity and throughput across various material streams while adapting to future business needs. Our new FINDER COLOR, built on TOMRA's 25 years of experience in colour sorting, is the perfect solution for their plant. We have worked alongside TRIMETAL to fine-tune, train and ensure optimal results, and together, we've pushed the boundaries of colour sorting today."

Looking ahead, TRIMETAL aims to intensify the sorting of high-value non-ferrous streams — such as copper alloys, brass, and PCBs — to accelerate its move upmarket without increasing headcount or incoming tonnage.

Benefitting North American recyclers

Giuseppe Granara, area manager, metals segment, for TOMRA Recycling sees the success achieved by TRIMETAL to be replicated by metals and electronics recyclers in North America. "The versatile solution provided by FINDER COLOR will benefit all metal recyclers — those running shredders, XRT technology and eddy current owners, and aluminum processors. Plus, it achieves high-level purification of printed circuit boards (PCBs) by colour from mixed e-scrap as a last-step recovery solution," he says. 

With a compact design, FINDER COLOR can flexibly be used as a standalone machine or integrated into existing lines for valuable commodity recovery. It offers an economical solution for extracting non-ferrous copper, zinc, magnesium, stainless steel, and brass from heavy metals. "With its ability to sort material by colour, size, and shape and quickly switch between different fractions, we expect wide adoption of this technology among recyclers currently relying on recovery by colour in their processes," adds Granara.