Recycling Robot

Developed by AMP Robotics, this robot makes use of artificial intelligence to recognize and sort food and beverage containers. Clarke has already been deployed in a municipal waste facility in Denver, Colorado, where it helps out with the trash-sorting system. Using a visible-light camera, it can spot milk, juice, and food cartons and pull them out using its robotic arm and suction cups. These items are then diverted away from the landfill, and sent instead to the appropriate recycling facility.

With a reliable rate of 60 items a minute, Clarke picks up recyclable waste with 90-percent accuracy and is about 50 percent faster than a human doing the same job. Ultimately, that results in a 50-percent reduction in sorting costs.

“The fundamental platform that we’ve created was a system to sort pretty much all the commodities that are in a recycling facility today,” AMP Robotics founder Mantanya Horowitz told Engadget, “Whether it’s cardboard, No. 1 plastics, No. 2 plastics, or cartons — cartons just ended up being a great place for us to start.”

But because Clarke is an AI-based system, the more it works, the smarter it gets.

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