Feb 7, 2024
Sorting Recycling is Hard. AI Could Help.
The Washington Post
Waste-sorting plants have been using machines to separate recyclables for years. But the machines — which use magnets, gravity, puffs of air and other rudimentary methods to sort through trash — aren’t perfect. As a result, the “sorted” 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.