AI-guided robots are ready to sort recyclables
spectrum.ieee.org
AI-guided robots are ready to sort recyclables
1–10 of 74 posts
Re: AI-guided robots are ready to sort recyclables
#2I worked at a mid sized startup where this idea was floated for developing a prototype. Neat to see it has become production level software somewhere
Re: AI-guided robots are ready to sort recyclables
#3I wish articles like this would just get to the point. We don't need yet another explanation of how recycling works, how it has low recovery rates, etc. Given the audience, take it as a given the reader has the basics down.
Further down the author finally starts to talk about their topic (trash picking robots), but then digresses yet again. It's a really terrible writing style.
State what your topic is up front with a brief high level, then you can mix in some more background while expanding on the details further below.
Re: AI-guided robots are ready to sort recyclables
#4What I find sad is to see startups here in Switzerland where we already separate and recycle extensively that offer a service where you just toss everything that can be recycled in the same bag. So batteries are mixed with plastic and cans. These bags compete with government collection facilities and are "reprogramming" people to be lazy. Regular trash is very expensive here and people who want to safe are forced to separate and recycle what can be.
The hardest task of recycling is the separation of items. Centralizing this does not scale as you need to hire more and more underpaid worked to do this task. The task that was done for free before by the person throwing the item out. All the facilities had to do is sort the remaining small percentage of miss sorted items instead of all items.
Re: AI-guided robots are ready to sort recyclables
#5A friend of mine worked at this company, and the bane of his existence was one popular Arizona green tea bottle. The plastic and glass versions looked identical[1], so no way to sort it visually. Great for brand identity, bad downstream.
[1] https://www.plasticstoday.com/packaging/arizona-beverages-sw...
Re: AI-guided robots are ready to sort recyclables
#6A friend of mine worked at this company, and the bane of his existence was one popular Arizona green tea bottle. The plastic and glass versions looked identical[1], so no way to sort it visually. Great for brand identity, bad downstream. [1] https://www.plasticstoday.com/packaging/arizona-beverages-sw...
I wonder if echolocation could have done the trick
Re: AI-guided robots are ready to sort recyclables
#7A friend of mine worked at this company, and the bane of his existence was one popular Arizona green tea bottle. The plastic and glass versions looked identical[1], so no way to sort it visually. Great for brand identity, bad downstream. [1] https://www.plasticstoday.com/packaging/arizona-beverages-sw...
I wonder if echolocation could have done the trick
Seriously. Give that robot some more senses. Echoic, magnetic, infra-ultra, spectrographic analytic, nuclear magnetic resonant... the whole schmeer. It's certainly easier than making them smarter.
Re: AI-guided robots are ready to sort recyclables
#8What I find sad is to see startups here in Switzerland where we already separate and recycle extensively that offer a service where you just toss everything that can be recycled in the same bag. So batteries are mixed with plastic and cans. These bags compete with government collection facilities and are "reprogramming" people to be lazy. Regular trash is very expensive here and people who want to safe are forced to…
Does sorting done by the general public count as "free"? It takes time and effort to route garbage to the appropriate bin --- maybe not much, but it adds up over the whole population. The desire to avoid this effort doesn't strike me as "lazy" any more than hiring a housekeeper or landscaper is "lazy". Economies of scale and division of labor make our society more prosperous. Why shouldn't we apply these principles to trash disposal and recycling?
Re: AI-guided robots are ready to sort recyclables
#9I wish articles like this would just get to the point. We don't need yet another explanation of how recycling works, how it has low recovery rates, etc. Given the audience, take it as a given the reader has the basics down. Further down the author finally starts to talk about their topic (trash picking robots), but then digresses yet again. It's a really terrible writing style. State what your topic is up front with…
If you want to be taken seriously you need to pad everything out to 40 paragraphs. It's some kind of unwritten rule of the internet. Literally. They even have bots that cull succinctity or label it trolly. It's psychotic.
Re: AI-guided robots are ready to sort recyclables
#10A friend of mine worked at this company, and the bane of his existence was one popular Arizona green tea bottle. The plastic and glass versions looked identical[1], so no way to sort it visually. Great for brand identity, bad downstream. [1] https://www.plasticstoday.com/packaging/arizona-beverages-sw...
I suppose a law could be passed that versions of a product with different materials would need to be visually distinct? Or manufacturers could voluntarily do it.