Anyone wanting to deliver quality in the recycling business needs more than experience – they need facts. Zeller Recycling from Mutterstadt has taken this step consistently: today, the company uses Optocycle's Heap Imager to analyse its material stockpiles in an automated, objective, and real-time manner. A partnership that demonstrates how digital intelligence doesn't replace traditional recycling craftsmanship, but measurably strengthens it.

Zeller Recycling: Quality along the entire value chain

Zeller Recycling, based in Mutterstadt, is a regionally active waste disposal service provider with a wide range of services: container service, waste collection, transport, recovery, and processing of residual waste, organic waste, bulky waste, paper, glass, and hazardous waste. In addition, they provide natural energy products for decentralised power generation plants as well as high-quality compost and mulch products for gardening, landscaping, and road construction.

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The company holds multiple certifications – including the EFB certificate, the RAL quality mark for compost (for over 20 years), and certification as a commercial waste treatment plant in accordance with the GewAbfV (German Commercial Waste Ordinance). These certifications are not an end in themselves: they reflect Zeller Recycling's ambition to not just collect raw materials, but to process them to a truly high standard and return them to the circular economy.

The challenge: Monitoring stockpiles – without gut feelings

In recycling operations, material stockpiles – also referred to as heaps – are a central part of daily business. Materials are delivered, sorted, stored, and further processed. But how can the quality of a growing stockpile of mixed construction materials, organic waste, or coarse matter be reliably assessed?

For a long time, this was done via visual inspections and the assessment of experienced employees. The problem: these assessments are difficult to document, non-reproducible, and not robust in the event of a dispute. Especially when providing proof of quality to clients or authorities, estimates do not count – data does.

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The path to Optocycle: How the collaboration began

The solution: Heap Imager from Optocycle

The Heap Imager is an AI-powered image recognition solution specifically developed for analysing material stockpiles in recycling. Cameras automatically and completely capture the surface of piles – an embedded machine learning model evaluates the images directly on-site (edge computing) and provides objective material characterisation in real time.

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For Zeller Recycling, this means: every stockpile is automatically documented. Contaminants, material compositions, and changes over time are traceable – not as a handwritten note, but as evaluable data in Optocycle's Material Intelligence Platform.

The concrete benefits at a glance:

• Objective quality data instead of subjective visual inspections
• Seamless documentation for internal quality assurance and external compliance requirements
• No disruption to existing workflows – the Heap Imager integrates into ongoing operations
• Real-time analysis through edge computing directly at the process site
• Reliable foundation for discussions with clients, certification bodies, and authorities

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The result: Quality control you can show off

Max-Frederick Gerken

Co-Founder & CEO, Optocycle GmbH

[Open – insert quote: What is Optocycle observing at Zeller Recycling after the go-live? What makes this customer a good example of the added value of the Heap Imager?]

What the collaboration with Zeller Recycling makes clear: quality assurance in recycling is not just a matter of technology – it is a matter of attitude. Zeller Recycling brings the ambition to process waste streams to a truly high standard. The Heap Imager gives this ambition a measurable foundation.

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Why the Heap Imager is becoming indispensable in modern recycling operations

The demands on recycling companies are rising. Statutory documentation requirements, growing customer expectations, and the pressure towards a circular economy demand more transparency across the entire material flow. Visual inspections and Excel spreadsheets are reaching their limits.

Optocycle's Heap Imager closes this exact gap: it turns "gut-feeling quality" into a verifiable, digital fact – without turning the operation upside down. This is not a luxury for pioneers, but increasingly a competitive advantage for any business that needs to prove its raw material quality.

Conclusion: Data instead of estimates – for Zeller Recycling and beyond

Zeller Recycling stands for an standard that runs through the entire company: quality that you can prove. With Optocycle's Heap Imager, this has become a concrete, measurable process. Monitoring material stockpiles is no longer a matter of interpretation – it is a matter of data.

For other recycling businesses facing similar challenges, Zeller Recycling is a living example: digitisation in recycling does not have to be complex. It just needs to be applied in the right place.