Watched a demo of AI sorting recycling at the city transfer station

I had to drop off some old paint cans at the county transfer station over in Essex last Saturday, and they had a new AI sorting arm running on one of the recycling lines. Honestly, it was wild to watch this robot arm pick out plastic bottles from mixed trash way faster than any human could, like 60 items a minute. The operator told me it uses computer vision to learn different container shapes and even catches stuff people miss. It made me think about how much waste we could cut if every town had one of these. Has anyone else seen one of these sorting setups in action?

3 comments

3 Comments

taylorc406d ago

Wait, isn't 60 items a minute kinda slow for a modern sorting robot?

xenaf516d ago

I can barely sort my own laundry so this would be lost on me.

kellyjones6d ago

Wait, paint cans aren't recyclable in most single-stream sorting systems since they're hazardous waste.