Recycling Plants Start Installing Trash-Spotting AI Systems (yahoo.com) 60
The world's biggest builder of recycling plants has teamed with a startup to install AI-powered systems for sorting recycling, reports the Washington Post. And now over the next few years, "The companies plan to retrofit thousands of recycling facilities around the world with computers that can analyze and identify every item that passes through a waste plant, they said Wednesday."
"[S]orted" recyclables, particularly plastic, wind up contaminated with other forms of trash, according to Lokendra Pal, a professor of sustainable materials engineering at North Carolina State University... [W]aste plants don't catch everything. [AI startup] Greyparrot has already installed over 100 of its AI trash spotters in about 50 sorting facilities around the world, and [co-founder Ambarish] Mitra said as much as 30 percent of potentially recyclable material winds up getting lumped in with the trash that's headed for the landfill. Failing to recycle means companies have to make more things from scratch, including a lot of plastic from fossil fuels. Also, more waste ends up in landfills and incinerators, which belch greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and pollute their surroundings.
Mitra said putting Greyparrot's AI tools in thousands of waste plants around the world can raise the percentage of glass, plastic, metal and paper that makes it to recycling facilities. "If we can move the needle by even 5 to 10 percent, that would be a phenomenal outcome on a planetary basis for greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact," he said. Cutting contamination would make recycled materials more valuable and raise the chances that companies would use them to make new products, according to Reck. "If the AI and the robots potentially helped to increase the quality of the recycling stream, that's huge," she said...
Greyparrot's device is, basically, a set of visual and infrared cameras hooked up to a computer, which monitors trash as it passes by on a conveyor belt and labels it under 70 categories, from loose bottle caps (not recyclable!) to books (sometimes recyclable!) to aluminum cans (recyclable!). Waste plants could connect these AI systems to sorting robots to help them separate trash from recyclables more accurately. They could also use the AI as a quality control system to measure how well they're sorting trash from recyclables. That could help plant managers tinker with their assembly lines to recover more recyclables, or verify that a bundle of recyclables is free of contaminants, which would allow them to sell for a higher price.
GreyParrot's co-founder said their trash-spotting computers "could one day help regulators crack down on companies that produce tsunamis of non-recyclable packaging," according to the article.
"The AI systems are so accurate, he said, that they can identify the brands on individual items. 'There could be insights that make them more accountable for ... the commitments they made to the public or to shareholders,' he said."
Mitra said putting Greyparrot's AI tools in thousands of waste plants around the world can raise the percentage of glass, plastic, metal and paper that makes it to recycling facilities. "If we can move the needle by even 5 to 10 percent, that would be a phenomenal outcome on a planetary basis for greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact," he said. Cutting contamination would make recycled materials more valuable and raise the chances that companies would use them to make new products, according to Reck. "If the AI and the robots potentially helped to increase the quality of the recycling stream, that's huge," she said...
Greyparrot's device is, basically, a set of visual and infrared cameras hooked up to a computer, which monitors trash as it passes by on a conveyor belt and labels it under 70 categories, from loose bottle caps (not recyclable!) to books (sometimes recyclable!) to aluminum cans (recyclable!). Waste plants could connect these AI systems to sorting robots to help them separate trash from recyclables more accurately. They could also use the AI as a quality control system to measure how well they're sorting trash from recyclables. That could help plant managers tinker with their assembly lines to recover more recyclables, or verify that a bundle of recyclables is free of contaminants, which would allow them to sell for a higher price.
GreyParrot's co-founder said their trash-spotting computers "could one day help regulators crack down on companies that produce tsunamis of non-recyclable packaging," according to the article.
"The AI systems are so accurate, he said, that they can identify the brands on individual items. 'There could be insights that make them more accountable for ... the commitments they made to the public or to shareholders,' he said."
Re:Plastic recycling is not profitable. (Score:4)
It's only cheaper if you are only taking into consideration the profits of the current and next quarter. If you take into account the long-term effects on yourself, your children, your grandchildren, and the rest of the population now and into the far future it is ultimately cheaper to do everything you can to be a good steward of the environment even if it is inconvenient, more expensive, or less profitable. Too consciously make the choice not to means that you are literally a bad person that chooses their own luxury and convenience to be more important than the overall sustainability of the planet and the health of all the other people that currently and will in the future live on it.
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Money spent on recycling plastic could be far more effectively spent in other ways, such as building more wind turbines and solar panels.
Recycling plastic consumes as much energy as it saves. It isn't clear that it is doing any good at all compared to just landfilling.
We need to do better at preventing plastic waste from going into rivers and oceans, but that is a separate issue and isn't a first-world problem.
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If you don't think that plastic pollution into rivers and oceans is a first world problem then I'm going to make the assumption that you are a misanthrope that is looking forward to the death of the species by the inevitable proliferation of cancers and the decline in the birth rate due to microplastics and the accompanying chemicals.
The abolition of the use of petroleum derived plastics in any but the most absolutely essential manufacturing should be the primary concern of every person that considers thems
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If you don't think that plastic pollution into rivers and oceans is a first world problem then I'm going to make the assumption that you are a misanthrope
Nope. It just means I have a grip on reality. Nearly all the plastic pollution in the oceans comes from developing countries, mostly in Asia.
Where does the plastic in our oceans come from? [ourworldindata.org]
I live in the Philippines. I see things like this [imgix.net] every day.
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Where are the plastic comes from is not what makes it a problem; it is the fact that it gets ground down to particles so fine that the sun on the ocean can cause it to waft into the air with evaporating water and circulate the entire planet so that plastic thrown out in Vietnam can be breathed in by your wife in America. Then it's can cross the placental barrier during gestation of your child and spend the next 20 years as the core of a slowly forming tumor that affects your child's cognitive and physical d
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Ha! Apparently I read that a little too fast and didn't catch the fact that you actually live in the Philippines! But my argument still stands. The trash that gets thrown out in your country can get ground down to find particles that Americans end up drinking and breathing; which makes plastic manufacturing, recycling, disposal, etc. a global problem not a regional one.
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Re: Plastic recycling is not profitable. (Score:1)
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There is literally only one element that responds to a magnet, iron; and of all of the elements that we need to control the release into the environment in the waste disposal process it is probably one of the most benign and least harmful of them.
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The cost of using recycled materials can be reduced quite easily too. For example, Sony started using recycled plastics for its high end wireless earbuds. The recycled plastic has a mottled look, although it is smooth and as durable as new plastic. They made it a feature and a selling point, and avoided having to process the waste plastic so much before it is re-used.
Another obvious trick is to simply use it where it won't be seen.
Plastic can be made easier to recycle during the initial manufacturing too, e
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Those 'recycled' plastic earbuds still end up tossed in the trash and then into the landfill at their end of life.
The plastic shell, electronic components, and the lithium of the battery will end in the ground water that percolates out of the landfill into the rivers and oceans. The freeze/thaw cycles, rain, and churning of the ground grind down and erode it into particles fine enough to be lifted into the air by the heat of sunlight evaporating the water it floats in. Those particles circle the globe and a
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Well I, for one, would rather be shittified than executed lol.
I'd generally agree, but it's also not an either-or.
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We shouldn't try and make capitalism work better for humans (you know, the things who created it) because 'Communist bad'?
Are we serious with this right now?
Re: Plastic recycling is not profitable. (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the Reagan era American governments did a *really* good job of stamping out all debate about economic systems, to the point that if you consider anything other than capitalism, youâ(TM)re now considered a looney.
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But even then there's so much more to capitalism itself before you get to something as far out as Stalinism/Maoism. The Libertarians certainly didn't help the problem you describe either
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Unfortunately, the Reagan era American governments did a *really* good job of stamping out all debate about economic systems, to the point that if you consider anything other than capitalism, youâ(TM)re now considered a looney.
Yeah, considering that there have been several hundred attempts to build an alternative to capitalism, and not a single fucking one. FUCKING ONE!!! exception [wikipedia.org] to the rule that they ALL brought misery and empoverishment to the people, maybe we should fucking stop trying?
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I'll take "what is Social Democracy [wikipedia.org] Alex."
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I'll take "what is Social Democracy [wikipedia.org] Alex."
"Cyanide is actually good for you if you water it down a bit before drinking it!"
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The delicious pithy non answer I've come to expect, it would almost be disappointing to get a coherent response at this point.
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"A form of capitalism is just watered down communism"
Nothing means anything anymore eh?
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Poison bad, watered down version of poison still bad.
Seeing as "watered down poisons" make up a number of real, legitimate medicines, your metaphor actually paints social democracy in a good light. So, you've failed to accomplish anything here.
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Lol you’re literally retarded and don’t even know what capitalism is.
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It's not so much that the communism/socialism attempts failed is that capitalism made a point of undermining any attempt for its to succeed because by its very nature anything other than capitalism is a threat to capitalism; the primary problem is is that capitalism is a system that serves itself and not the people that are subject to it.
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Once upon a time Capitalism was a controversial idea.
Anyhow we need to identify issues with capitalism as it is now and address them somehow and it’s not going to happen with delusional quasi-purists like yourself spouting this shit. Our capitalism is not working as intended.
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We shouldn't try and make capitalism work better for humans (you know, the things who created it) because 'Communist bad'?
Are we serious with this right now?
Yes. Centrally planned market is a substantial part of what made communism shitty, and is what you're also trying to bring, just maybe without the executions... yet.
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Come back to me when you actually know what a "centrally planned economy" actually is, not just want you want it to be, you know, for politics.
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Come back to me when you actually know what a "centrally planned economy" actually is, not just want you want it to be, you know, for politics.
Oh I know way better than you do, having, you know, lived under one for some time.
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Then the fact you would equate one to the USA or EU in 2024 means you either are lying about a) knowing what it is or b) your living knowledge gives you any actual knowledge or c) you're just being a right wing hack with old tired arguments that are stuck in the late 2000's. Is Obama a secret Muslim too? Again, what are we even doing here?
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Then the fact you would equate one to the USA or EU in 2024 means you either are lying about a) knowing what it is or b) your living knowledge gives you any actual knowledge or c) you're just being a right wing hack with old tired arguments that are stuck in the late 2000's. Is Obama a secret Muslim too? Again, what are we even doing here?
Oh, of course EU isn't a full blown centrally planned economy as in a communist state, it's a kind of watered down version. Cyanide may be poisonous, so let's try to water it down a little and then drink it, that's completely different, it'll surely be good for you!
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See that's the beauty of capitalism, you just don't see it, capitalism is flexible. Socialist programs and entities can happily exist happily inside capitalism and lots of other paradigms as well.
Capitalism is actually pretty cool sometimes, especially combined with liberalism, kinda why it's the global structure today and effectively wiped out communism. You should try learning about it sometimes.
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BTW, no, I'll not give you back a courtesy mirror admission about communism, even in watered down (social democracy) form.
Obviously you can't, you don't know what any of these terms mean!
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Please tell me the name of Norway's Gosplan. Or don't the Nordics count as "try[ing] to make capitalism work better for humans"?
No. They count as "cutting of coupons off exploition huge oil resources (Norway) or blatant collaboration with Nazi Germany at a right price during WW2 (Sweden) and pretending their current wellbeing is because of geeeenius leftist policies instead of those factors". Well, Sweden seems to be running out of their accumulated wealth, so give them a decade. Norway's oil and sovereign fund made off it will last them way longer, so once you do discover oil resources equating Norway's feel free to follow their le
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Capitalism is the worst possible economic system anyone could think of devising, except for all the others.
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When you get the profit motive involved there will always be someone trying to make it cheaper so they can have more profit.
When you let the money make the decisions then that person will tend to succeed, to the detriment of all.
We can not afford to continue allowing the money to make the decisions. It is destroying us in many ways at once.
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You missed my entire point. Capitalism isn't great. But what is the alternative you would propose, that's better than capitalism?
In Socialism, for example, you end up with crony politics and bribery. Which is worse, people who are willing to bribe the right officials influencing things, or the profit motive influencing things? In socialism, only the brown-nosers win.
Capitalism needs boundaries, which it gets in the form of regulation. But it's a far better economic system than Socialism because it allows pe
Re: Plastic recycling is not profitable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Itâ(TM)s cheaper because plastic recycling is extremely time and labour intensive, mostly because sorting it takes so long. If you use AI to do that sorting quickly and effectively then you may be able to make a profit.
Re:Plastic recycling is not profitable. (Score:4, Informative)
We live in a capitalist society, trying to impose idological mandates handed down from the ivory tower woke minority will always end badly
There is no trying here. There isn't a single capitalist society on the planet that doesn't operate under laws and regulations which govern how business happens. It doesn't "end badly" it is literally the status quo.
Politicians? (Score:1)
They tried it on Trump, but it kept classifying him as trash.
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They tried it on Trump, but it kept classifying him as trash.
It's the same reason Twitter couldn't implement a screening for white nationalist and Nazi comments like they did for ISIS. Republicans would be classified as well.
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So you're saying it works, then
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The best approach is to live a stress-free life. Just recycle whatever you think they should be able to recycle, and let them have the stress of what to do with it.
Use of AI that I can get behind (Score:4, Insightful)
Being able to have machines do an arduous, dangerous, disgusting task that most human beings really would not want to do on a large scale in a facility because too many humans can't be bothered to do it at the point of disposal is a perfectly acceptable use of AI to replace human labor.
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Sure, until it costs $100 per pound of garbage.
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Why would anyone make the capital investment of machines when they would cost more to operate than paying people? (assuming $100/lb is more expensive than people)
Re: Use of AI that I can get behind (Score:2)
Okay, except that humans doing it costs a *vast* sum of money. Thatâ(TM)s the primary reason why almost no plastics are recycled.
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This thing will never get distracted or tired of the tedium of accurately sorting the garbage. The economy of scale is going to be huge.
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Why would it ever cost $100 per pound of garbage? That doesn't make any sense, and the article certainly doesn't state this.
The whole point is to develop a system that is cheaper than human labor, not more expensive.
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This is pretty much what AI is good for. Even the ChatGPT and Copilot varieties are all about doing arduous, repetitive work that regular humans don't want to do.
What, only now? (Score:1)
This is surely not the first time image recognition is used to run task pocket robots. Is this significantly better than existing systems, or is it just news because a startup says "AI"?
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This is surely not the first time image recognition is used to run task pocket robots. Is this significantly better than existing systems, or is it just news because a startup says "AI"?
Actually a large portion sorting systems rely on physical properties to separate trash. Also I assume you were trying to say "trash picking robots", for the most part trash processing facilities haven't used picking robots, rather they use conveyor systems with separation elements to it, think something as simple as a jet of air to separate light plastic bags or magnets for iron.
I'm sure there are some plants with picking robots and I'm sure it's not the first time image analysis has been used, but it certa
recent news says recycled plastics are dangerous (Score:2)
https://theconversation.com/da... [theconversation.com]