How does it work? New AI robots keeping recyclables from landfills

By MacLeod Hageman

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    APPLETON, Wisconsin (WGBA) — Separating your trash from your recyclables should be easy, but what happens when a plastic bottle ends up in the wrong bin?

Fortunately, there’s a new tool being used in Appleton that can spot and remove recyclables like plastic bottles, milk jugs, or even yogurt containers to keep them from a nearby landfill.

If you recycle paper or plastic, chances are that those items ended up at the Material Recovery Facility in Appleton where mostly recycled material is brought in, loaded onto a conveyor belt, and then sorted by workers and one of four new artificial robots.

“It’s a tool that they can use to better do their job,” said Outagamie County Recycling and Solid Waste Coordinator Jordan Hiller.

Hiller and Brown County Resource and Recovery Department Business Development Manager Mark Walter say items on the belt are scanned by a high-tech camera, and then it’s sorted by a robotic arm with a suction cup to be recycled.

Walter and Hiller say it’s all about efficiency.

“About another extra bale of material per day, per robot is being picked, compared to a person standing there,” Walter said.

“If these robots weren’t here, what would that essentially mean for Northeast Wisconsin,” MacLeod asked.

“I think what would change is that we wouldn’t be able to recover as much, because it’s not like they’re pulling more, they’re just more consistent. So, we are getting about a bale’s worth of material more than we were before. So, if you look at that over the span of a year, that is a lot of material that we’re saving from going into the landfill,” Hiller said.

Walter adds that the new technology even recognizes some recyclables that workers might miss.

“It allows us to actually accept more types of plastics. In this specific case, yogurt containers, butter containers. We’ve always wanted to be able to capture them, because they have a market, and that market is growing,” Walter said.

However, Hiller says these nearly $400,000 robots aren’t perfect.

“For anybody who uses any sort of AI nowadays, you know that it is fun, and it’s getting there, but at this point, I’m not worried about it taking my job or really anybody else in the facility,” Hiller said.

In fact, Hiller says that’s one of the biggest concerns students have when touring the facility.

“Even young people now are really concerned about robots taking peoples jobs, and we can tell you, that is not the case,” Hiller said.

Hiller say they offer tours of the facility Monday through Friday, five days a a week.

They say tours give people an up-close look at the new technology, but there are some age restrictions.

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