Recyclers turn to AI robots after waste import bans

Adam Green, Recyclers turn to AI robots after waste import bans, Financial Times, 2020/7/1.

To recycle in a cost-effective, comprehensive and safe way, goods must be broken down into their constituent commodities to be sold on, in a process that has been likened to “unscrambling an egg”....

Automation often stokes anxiety about mass unemployment, but the recycling sector has been struggling to find enough workers. The US waste and recycling industry has suffered labour shortages in recent years. By limiting the influx of foreign workers to do jobs locals are not keen on, the UK’s departure from the EU is expected to hit the UK’s waste management sector hard. 

“This technology is creating a sustainable workforce for jobs that aren’t being filled,” says Mr Wirth. “These are the dull, dirty, dangerous kind of jobs which robotics and AI is perfect for.”

Liz Bothwell, AMP Robotics Hits Major AI-driven Recycling Milestone, waste360, Apr 23, 2020

The "one billion" milestone means that AMP’s technology has specifically targeted and removed one billion individual recyclable items from billions of other materials in the waste stream. This milestone also illustrates the power of the company’s AMP Neuron™ AI platform that uses computer vision and machine learning to recognize different colors, textures, shapes, sizes, patterns, and even brand labels to identify exactly what the material is and whether it is recyclable. Neuron then guides robots to consistently perform sorting tasks more than twice as quickly as humanly possible, with much greater accuracy, and over long durations of time.