back to article You're so bad at recycling, this biz built an AI to handle it for you

If our AI robot slaves ever decide to revolt, they might start in the most thankless place possible: The municipal solid waste facilities where AMP Robotics is using them to sort recyclables from all the rest of the municipal solid waste (MSW) that us meatbags regularly fail to separate properly. That's right: Cutting-edge AI …

  1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Meh

    Hmmm

    Well, personally I try to use whatever recycling means are available. Probably about 25% of other people in the UK also do that - here the facilities are somewhat patchy.

    In Europe (where I visit quite often) I'd say it's more like 70%. A lot of it is down to providing easy to use (and find) facilities.

    1. steviebuk Silver badge

      Re: Hmmm

      There's a guy on YouTube, can't remember the name or have a link, that created a tracking device to sneak into plastic bottles here in the UK. He planted them in some recycling bins round the area to see what the council does with them. Discovering a lot of them where being shipped abroad to be "recycled".

      1. nobody who matters Silver badge

        Re: Hmmm

        I suspect a significant proportion of the plastic from which the bottles are made is imported from 'abroad' in the first place.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        > shipped abroad

        Plastics are light. Unfortunately many people leave liquids inside plastic bottles. Also many leave plastic bottles unsquashed, even tap them. Such bottles quickly overfill trash bins with air, basically. These add to unnecessary removal and transportation costs. Plain lack of propaganda needed from the government.

        About 80% of my garbage by weight and volume is glass and compostables. Both easily recyclable. Cans as well. One problem though is that compostables and cans can be stinky, especially in the summer. It would be nice to have a refrigerated garbage bin.

        1. nobody who matters Silver badge

          Re: > shipped abroad

          I don't know what part off the world you are in, but in the UK domestic rubbish, garden waste and recycling waste are collected in 'compactor' refuse lorries*, so they will be very effectively squashed down as they are collected from the domestic waste bins.

          * OK, there are places which are either remote or inaccesible for bin lorries where the refuse and recycling are collected by small Transit sized cage sided vehicles and the rubbish is not compacted, but these make up a tiny proportion of the total.

          Re. stinky cans - do you not wash them out before consigning them to the recycling bin as most normal people do? Clean cans don't stink ;)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmmm

      There's also an element of education here: even in Europe things can be improved.

      For instance, few know that the tops of the sealed meat packaging are of a different material as the tray itself. Most know to remove the 'nappy' (as the late Sean Lock termed it :) ), but few know that tearing the top off completely so it's on its own tremendously helps sorting too, and sticking things of a different material in another container reduces recycling rates as well since a lot of the initial sorting is done optically.

      Recycling isn't that hard, but it must be actively supported by authorities and underpinned by facilities actually engaged in recycling. I suspect the latter is where the real challenge lies in the UK because I find most people are quite prepared to do a bit more - just not too much..

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Re: Hmmm

        My local German rubbish disposal authority (Potsdam) currently mandates four recycling bins: brown for bio, blue for card and paper, yellow for plastics and food packaging, and black for 'everything else' - though curiously in the new year I think they're dropping the black to be included in the yellow bin. So either they've got a good separator somewhere upstream, or they're just shipping it to the middle of the North Sea... I was amused to discover when moving house (from next door) that I couldn't bring the bins with me; while the house was officially unoccupied they sent a man with a van and an RFID scanner to collect them and make sure he got the right ones!

        It helps that the vast majority of bottled products include a refund in the price - five bob for a coke bottle, ninepence for beer bottles (and I think two and half euros for a beer crate) so they go back to the clever machine in the supermarket; glass has to be hand sorted by colour at the bottle bank down the road (but not on a Sunday, nor before eight or after eight - wouldn't want to wake the neighbours!)

        1. nobody who matters Silver badge

          Re: Hmmm

          It is similar in some council areas of the UK - where I am we have four bins with the same split of types of waste as you, although there is a (reasonably small) list of things which ought to be able to be recycled, but aren't so they have to go with general rubbish (the combustible component of which goes to an incinerator to generate electricity rather than simply piling up in a dump).

        2. Bebu sa Ware
          Coat

          Re: Hmmm

          《five bob for a coke bottle, ninepence for beer bottles》

          5/- for a coca cola bottle v 9d for a beer bottle? Why are coke bottles worth ~7 times more than a beer bottle? Or is it a German (cultural thing?)

          On second thoughts its more like ~5 times.

          1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

            Re: Hmmm

            25 cents for the plastic coke bottles, 9 cents for beer. So three times the price for plastic!

            I am a child of the sixties and remember one-and-six for a bottle of pop and threepence back on the empty...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmmm

      "Probably about 25% of other people in the UK also do that - here the facilities are somewhat patchy"

      100% of the people I know in the UK recycle because everyone has excellent recycling facilities at home. I've lived all over the UK and those facilities exist everywhere, make it incredibly easy, to the point that it's easier to recycle than not recycle. Where I am at the moment, the council provides a large bin for recycling and much smaller one for household waste. It's a great system because if I didn't recycle I'd quickly run out of space for rubbish. Looking down the street on collection day I can see every one of my neighbours is recycling their waste. I'm a big fan of councils that collect unsorted recycling and do the sorting themselves. It increases recycling rates and I don't have to deal with multiple bins for paper, glass, etc. Although when I've lived in places with multiple bins everyone still recycled because it's a tiny amount of effort and makes them feel smug. Everyone likes feeling smug.

      In parts of Europe, such as Sweden, they recycle more than 99% of waste. Sweden now imports waste from other countries and generates electricity from it. With the US sending over 50% of waste to landfill and energy grids running out of electricity, seems like they should start copying the Swedes.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Hmmm

        I'm a big fan of councils that collect unsorted recycling and do the sorting themselves. It increases recycling rates and I don't have to deal with multiple bins for paper, glass, etc.

        It's the only way to do it properly. Attempts to do it any other way, to try and save money by having residents do the sorting, are doomed to failure.

        Although when I've lived in places with multiple bins everyone still recycled because it's a tiny amount of effort and makes them feel smug. Everyone likes feeling smug.

        My local council tells me that if the wrong type of rubbish is put in bins, ends up in the collection vehicle, the whole lot which should have been recycled goes to landfill.

        Given that just one mistake landfills the entire lot, the high chance of that happening, means it's likely wasted effort sorting it myself.

        So, except for separating out food waste; I don't.

        I do sometimes feel smug because I am not wasting my time half as much as those diligently sorting their waste not realising it will likely be landfilled anyway. But it's a smugness I would rather not have.

        I've explained to the council how flawed their approach is but they are only interested in not spending the money to do it properly. They don't care so why should anyone else.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Hmmm

          > My local council tells me that if the wrong type of rubbish is put in bins, ends up in the collection vehicle, the whole lot which should have been recycled goes to landfill.

          > Given that just one mistake landfills the entire lot, the high chance of that happening, means it's likely wasted effort sorting it myself.

          They say that because they don't want people annoyed at having had their weekly waste collection changed into two fortnightly collections, one waste and one recycling, treating the two the same and putting out general waste each week.

          Personally, I don't think that happens very often at all as the position of the waste in the lorry ties down the location of the offender pretty accurately to a couple of streets. After a few incidents the waste contractor will be asking the council to send an inspector round to check bins prior to collection.

          You could always use a freedom of information act request to find out just how many lorryloads had to be rejected over the last year and for what reason. If it's as bad as you think then the results will back up your complaints.

        2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

          Re: Hmmm

          It's the only way to do it properly. Attempts to do it any other way, to try and save money by having residents do the sorting, are doomed to failure.

          My local council - Dumfries and Galloway - invested a lot of money in the "Eco Deco Plant", a factory which automatically sorted mixed waste, removing recyclable stuff and turning much of the rest into Waste Derived Fuel. Then the Scottish government (who under the SNP have a remarkably ironic aversion to local decision making in favour of central diktat) decided that all councils had to have kerbside sorting. So after a lot of faff I now have three bins: landfill, plastic/metal and paper/cardboard ... and significantly less is recycled than under the old system.

      2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: those facilities exist everywhere, make it incredibly easy

        Make use of it while you can. Cash strapped councils will close all recycling centres if they could as it would save them loadasmoney and to hell with the increase in fly tipping. Hampshire threatened to close around half of theirs from the start of the next financial year. The outcry was enough to get them to reconsider. They are safe for another 12 months.

        The biggest problem is the list of things to recycle differs between councils. Hampshire is shite when compared to other LA's.

      3. Martin-73 Silver badge

        Re: Hmmm

        Obviously not lived in Southampton then... our council is SHITE re: recycling. Can ONLY recycle bottles. No yoghurt pots, food trays, etc... :( Due to a 'third party contractor not having facilities'. Down the road, Gosport can recycle almost everything. ridiculous situation

      4. juice

        Re: Hmmm

        > 100% of the people I know in the UK recycle because everyone has excellent recycling facilities at home

        I'm not sure where you live, but my experiences have been somewhat more varied.

        I used to live in a house, which had three bins - general, cardboard, and mixed glass/plastic/metal. And as far as I'm aware, the people on that street generally put things in the right bins.

        I then moved to a flat in a large complex. And that had rubbish-chutes for general rubbish, and then larger communal bins, again for general, cardboard and mixed recycling.

        Things were a bit more complicated there. Generally, I didn't find the chutes too useful; they're only just big enough for a small carrier bag's worth of rubbish, necessitating many small trips back and forth. And even then, the odds were good that they'd gotten clogged up by someone trying to ram something too large down them!

        As a result, I generally defaulted to carrying stuff over to the large communal bins. But even then, while the general bins were emptied daily, the "recyclable" bin schedule seemed to be random, so these were often filled to overflowing. At which point, stuff got dumped into the general bins.

        Equally, while people generally respected the rules for cardboard, all too often people would dump unrecyclable junk into the mixed bin; most commonly, they'd dump a binbag full of recyclables into the bin, rather than emptying said bag into the bin. Which then meant that the recycling was potentially too contaminated for recycling.

        Now, I've moved to a flat in a complex with a fairly odd layout; there's essentially a single thin path between the buildings which is too narrow for vehicles.

        Which means that I'm back to having a single "general" bin, which is collected weekly. As is everyone around me!

        I am still separating out recyclable stuff, but even then; according to the council website, aside from the main recycling centres (which are generally very busy; it can take over an hour to queue up and unload), there's just two public recycling points in the city centre which take mixed recycling, both of which are tiny and likely to be overfilled. And they're both far enough that I have to drive to them...

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmmm

      How about they simply sort out recycling so that we just use a single bin for everything, and it's sorted, cleaned and appropriately handled by those who collect it? The inefficiency and waste of individuals individually cleaning items to recycle is significant on a national scale, and the combination of contamination by mis-sorting or simple non-compliance undermines the effectiveness of "citizen sorting".

      I'm sure somebody will point out that mixing left-over casserole, used nappies, hoover fluff etc with dry recyclables isn't ideal, but my point is that current recycling strategies are inefficient cottage industry approaches to an industrial problem, and it's local authorities who should sort it out. When it comes to mining we can sort out our chosen ores from complex mixes of rock and soil, about time waste was considered in the same way. And that extends to finding a use for materials that don't lend themselves to efficient recycling (such as green glass in the UK, where we import a lot of it, but don't actually use much).

      1. nobody who matters Silver badge

        Re: Hmmm

        <....."I'm sure somebody will point out that mixing left-over casserole, used nappies, hoover fluff etc with dry recyclables isn't ideal"......>

        I would suggest it would be unacceptable; most particularly to the people charged with separating it all out.

        Or are you not bothered about the Eastern European migrants? After all, it is they who will be the ones doing this work (in the UK and much of Western Europe at any rate).

  2. munnoch Silver badge

    "manual labor for sortation"

    Whats wrong with "sorting". I'm going to write a sortation function at work next week....

    Sounds like the perfect task for ML, it is just a massive classification engine after all.

    Garbage in, garbage out.... literally.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: "manual labor for sortation"

      Garbage in, raw materials out in this case. Probably unique in the annals of AI/ML/LLM.

      1. HuBo Silver badge
        Go

        Re: "manual labor for sortation"

        Yeah, it's like a BFF AI app, that combines the strengths of AI with the strengths of trash, to benefit both! Reminds me a bit of that KFC-Burger-King BFF Burger that is assaulting France this week ... if these two can be friends, then surely we can shove AI on the trash heap too (for sorting!)!

    2. steviebuk Silver badge

      Re: "manual labor for sortation"

      Garbage in, plastic pelts outs.

    3. Bebu sa Ware
      Coat

      Re: "manual labor for sortation"

      《Whats wrong with "sorting".》

      I was also thinking that. Another uncouth left pondian coinage but the OED records the word from the 1840s so possibly an uncouth Victorian coinage. ;)

      Looking at the word's definition I had the impression that sortation has more of the sense of assigning entities to exclusive categories without any idea of ordering which sorting might imply.

      Although poking around the passing contents on a recycling conveyor belt does have a definite element of sortition about it. :)

  3. Clausewitz4.0 Bronze badge
    Devil

    Plain ML, not AI

    This job can be done with some ML and sensors - optical, mechanical.

    Do the market/industry really needs to write AI in everything to justify where that VC money went?

    1. Alumoi Silver badge

      Re: Plain ML, not AI

      Yes.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Plain ML, not AI

        Unfortunately.

        1. Richard 12 Silver badge

          Re: Plain ML, not AI

          Though they do need to keep track of where they've used the term. When the AI bubble bursts they'll need to update it all back to ML.

  4. cornetman Silver badge

    > "Diapers, bowling bowls, dead animals and more.

    What's a bowling bowl? Is it like a bowling ball with a recess for your breakfast cereal?

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Bowls for bowling, obviously.

      Though I didn't think that was popular in the US, bowls is more of a north of England & Wales kind of thing.

      1. cornetman Silver badge

        Well I'm from Yorkshire and I've nivver 'eard of a bowling "bowl". Sure, there is "bowls" the pastime/sport, but I don't think that the balls are called bowls.

        From my modest dalliance with bowls, IIRC the little white one is called a "jack" but I might be wrong about that.

        It does remind me of a time at a bowling event, they were serving a little buffet and I saw that they had black pudding. I thought, "I love black pudding", but I didn't realise that it wasn't the fried variety (which is a delight that everyone should try). No, was the "raw" variety which was disgusting.

  5. jake Silver badge

    "before these ML garbage bots gain sentience"

    Too late.

    See: The US House and Senate, the British Houses of Parliament, etc.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "before these ML garbage bots gain sentience"

      Especially the new occupant of the White House. All those Big Mac cartons have to go somewhere... His bedroom at Mar-a-Lardo would do nicely.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: "before these ML garbage bots gain sentience"

        Considering he thinks anything "green" is a scam and doesn't believe in "climate change", and over 50% of people who voted, voted for him, there may well be a correlation between MAGA voters and recycling levels.

  6. jake Silver badge

    "Recycling is also pretty expensive"

    Not really, not when done right. Palo Alto's recycling department has paid for itself since the 1970s. In fact, they had so much surplus money back in the 90s that they purchased a couple of high-end street sweepers with part of the profits.

    Also, there is a reason "the mafia" (whatever that really means these days) has historically been involved in trash collection. It's VERY profitable, when done right. See: James Failla, for perhaps the best known example here in the US.

    Where there's muck there's brass.

  7. nobody who matters Silver badge

    We already have the technology to sort most of the recycling without any need for expensive and energy hungry supposed 'AI'.

    Yet another example of a technology without any purpose groping around to justify itself and trying to solve a problem which doesn't really exist, and for which there are already better, cheaper and more energy efficient solutions.

    1. lglethal Silver badge
      Go

      As much as I would agree with you on AI matters 99% of the time. This might just be one time I dont. OK forget the fact they're spouting AI. This is a simple ML system. Using optical sensors to sort garbage and having an ML background to be able to help it with identifying the products, is actually a perfect use case for this sort of stuff. And when working properly, would actually be a massive cost saving.

      As mentioned in the article, the biggest cost driver for these recycling facilities, is the labour costs, so anything that helps do the sorting without the need for human sorters is going to save a ton.

      So for once this ML use case is solving a problem that does exist, and for which the current solutions are not better, cheaper or more efficient. We really should congratulate these people for finding a relevant use case for ML, rather than just the usual hype bollocks...

      1. nobody who matters Silver badge

        You can't ignore the fact that they're spouting 'AI' - that is the root of the problem.

        You are quite correct, that ML could do this, but the processes to do the sorting do already exist and do not require the use of ML or AI, neither does it require a large energy supply or huge expense ;)

  8. Denarius Silver badge

    Ai and garbage. perfect match. Might improve existing sorting machines.

    1. nobody who matters Silver badge

      Upvoted because having the type of not-AI discussed here in the same sentence as the word garbage is very suitable indeed!

  9. MatthewSt Silver badge
    Flame

    "Where facilities exist"

    One problem in the Yorkshire region is that there are poor instructions both on the packaging and the council's material as to exactly what can be recycled. My "favourite" description on the packaging is one which says "Recyclable where facilities exist"...

  10. PRR Silver badge

    Maine USA was a pioneer of recycling in the 1970s. Also the Bottle Bill got the soda/beer containers out of our ditches.

    But it has all collapsed post COVID (and was teetering before that). We are now all trash together, and investigations show the dumps are just unable to effectively sort our mountains of rubbish.

    I don't think AI is the whole answer. I know "90% uptime" won't do.

  11. Big_Boomer

    SIX!!!!

    We have SIX bloody recycling bins here and we have to pay extra for the 6th one (garden waste) as it is no longer included in the Council Tax that we pay. Black wheelie bin for general waste, a blue bag for cardboard/paper, a white bag for metal/plastic, an orange box for glass, small green bin for food waste, and the green wheelie bin for garden waste. The blue & white bags do not seal effectively so we have wind-blown plastic and paper everywhere on collection day, the black bin is mostly empty, and we don't use enough glass to warrant putting the orange bin out most of the time. The local council has decided that the blue & white will be replaced by plastic single use bags next year but the rest is staying the same.

    As for the packaging problems, talk to the fucking manufacturers of it. If they can't make packaging that can be recycled simply with minimal waste, then they should not be allowed to sell their products. That'll soon motivate them. Don't fine them as they just raise their prices when that happens. I recently bought an M.2 SSD and it came in a cardboard box that contained plastic and card inserts, had plastic shrink-wrap on the outside, and the whole was delivered in another cardboard box with a smile on the side. The amount of waste that went into recycling outweighed the SSD by at least 5 to 1.

    I am all for anything that can reduce the sorting at home, just so I can have less bloody bags/boxes/bins to store and deal with.

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