24-Sep-2021 | Market Research Store
A group of engineers is engaged in fabricating smart robot that would help in quickly recycling soft plastic in a novel way. The robot is capable enough to not only recognize but also segregate and separate various items in recyclable garbage. Soft plastics are hard to recycle through the robotic approach, as the garbage may interfere in the autonomous functioning. Due to this concern, manual sorting of soft plastics is preferred, which is a laborious and possibly lethal operation.
A team of scientists from the Centre for IoT and Telecommunications at the University of Sydney is developing an exclusive approach to boost the recycling of soft plastic by constructing a smart, automated robotic system that employs Artificial Intelligence to sort waste.Professor Branka Vucetic, an IoT expert, stated that the automated recycling robotic system wouldemploy computer vision and AI to comprehend how to scan and separatediverse forms of recyclable waste.The machine can create a separate heap of soft plastics, thereby maintaining the purity of the sorted waste to be recycled.
During 2018–2019, Australia generated around 2.5 million tons of plastic trash, which includes soft plastics. Of this bulk, only 9 percent of garbage was recycled, and 84 percent was disposed in landfills. Dr. Wanchun Liu stated that the common goal of the world is to elevate the proportion of recycled waste and dropping the proportion of disposed waste. This would be possible by creating a solution that promotes the recycling of soft plastic trash.
To develop such a sophisticated system, the researchers have collaborated with the renowned waste management industries, comprising CurbCycle and IQ Renew, along with some experienced technology developers. The robot would recognize bags labeled with ‘CurbyTags' and differentiate plastic sources, segregate soft plastics from mixed trash to be recycled.
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