Another Good Use of AI: Finding Valuable Stuff in Trash
- Editor OGN Daily
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
Waste management firms are reaping unexpected returns on their investment in AI-powered robotic garbage sorters.
The original idea was to speed the process up by replacing humans with super-fast robotic sorters and, of course, save on wages. But what if AI could identify and sort all the valuable and recyclable stuff lurking in the trash?
Matanya Horowitz, founder and chief technology officer at Amp Robotics, told the Washington Post: “There really is value in a lot of recyclables and garbage. The problem has been that the cost of pulling those materials out is similar to or greater than the actual value of those materials.” The good news is that s now changing for the better, thanks to AI.
According to The Post, Waste Management - America's largest waste management firm - has invested $1.4 billion on trash sorting robots for their facilities. Their third-quarter profits rose 18 percent on higher quantity and quality of sales of recyclable material.
These AI robotic devices are trained on thousands of varieties and states of common trash, and make thousands of decisions every minute in order to discern, from amongst the tangled mess, an item’s quality, integrity, and other characteristics, and then make sure it is sorted into the correct piles.
One such device is Amp Robotics’ Cortex sorting machine, and the company has recently signed a 20-year agreement to operate a materials recovery facility (the technical term for a recycling facility), for Virginia’s Southeastern Public Service Authority, which had an appalling recycling rate of just 7 percent. Amp will get a $50 fee for every ton of waste it takes, and agree to pay damages to the Authority if it fails to divert at least half of the received contents from the landfill - something, thus far, it has never failed to achieve.
Job loss is often presented as a drawback to AI-driven automation (and in many cases that may be a valid argument), but very few people don’t want to work at a recycling facility. It's rather like BurgerBots at fast food joints that have started doing the jobs nobody wants to do.
