Jason Calaiaro Says AI-Equipped Picker Robots Could Help Solve the Recycling Problem

Amp Robotics' Jason Calaiaro has argued that robotic systems powered by artificial intelligence — like the ones his company is creating — can help provide a solution to the thorny problem of sorting recyclables for processing.

"Only a small quantity of all recyclables makes it into the [kerbside recycling] bins — just 32 percent in the United States and 10 to 15 percent globally," Calaiaro writes in a piece for IEEE Spectrum. "That's a lot of material made from finite resources that needlessly goes to waste. There is a way to do better. Using computer vision, machine learning, and robots to identify and sort recycled material, we can improve the accuracy of automatic sorting machines, reduce the need for human intervention, and boost overall recovery rates."

Calaiaro is speaking from a position of some knowledge, though with natural bias. His company, Amp Robotics, is working on exactly that problem, building a vision-based processing system, which can identify different classes of recyclables as they travel on a conveyor belt then snag items of interest using a high-speed picker arm. His company isn't alone in putting AI to work on the problem, though, but he claims Amp is faster and more accurate.

"An AI-driven computer-vision system […] can determine that a bottle is HDPE and not something else by recognizing its packaging," Calaiaro explains. "Such a system can also use attributes like color, opacity, and form factor to increase detection accuracy, and even sort by color or specific product, reducing the amount of reprocessing needed. Though the system doesn’t attempt to understand the meaning of words on labels, the words are part of an item’s visual attributes.

"Right now, our systems do really well on certain categories—more than 98 percent accuracy on aluminum cans—and are getting better at distinguishing nuances like color, opacity, and initial use (spotting those food-grade plastics)."

Harry Goldstein, IEEE Spectrum's acting editor in chief, does however sound a note of caution: "As much as we may hope that AI can solve our problems for us, that’s wishful thinking," he writes in a companion comment piece.

"Human ingenuity got us into this mess and humans will have to regulate, legislate, and otherwise incentivize the private sector to get us out of it. To make a bigger difference, we need to address the problem at the beginning of the process: manufacturers and packaging companies must shift to more sustainable designs that use less material or more recyclable ones."

Calaiaro's full article is available on IEEE Spectrum now.