{"id":180680,"date":"2025-03-15T21:41:36","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T01:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wasteadvantagemag.com\/?p=180680"},"modified":"2025-03-16T21:51:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T01:51:30","slug":"university-of-massachusetts-grads-show-off-their-ai-powered-robotic-trash-sorter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wasteadvantagemag.com\/university-of-massachusetts-grads-show-off-their-ai-powered-robotic-trash-sorter\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Massachusetts Grads Show Off their AI-Powered Robotic Trash Sorter"},"content":{"rendered":"
If consumers confused about recycling rules are instigating the contamination problem, Somervillie-based robotics startup rStream believes they can solve it by using artificial intelligence to sort trash and recycling instead. \u201cOur objective is to make equipment that can sort of waste and recyclables,\u201d said Ian Goodine, co-founder of rStream Ian Goodine. \u201cThat could be to service the function of separating single stream into various commodities that can ultimately be packaged and sold for remanufacturing. The other function which we\u2019re doing here today is actually pre-sorting.\u201d<\/p>\n
rStream has piloted its automated trash-sorting AI at the UMass dining commons and the UMass Waste Recovery and Transfer Facility, practicing its identification and separation of plastic, paper and cardboard. The more data to fine-tune its \u00a0algorithm, the better rStream\u2019s robot technology can produce a cleaner recycled material for waste companies to sell, leading to a better recyclable product and lowering the amount of waste sent to landfills each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve all experienced that feeling of staring at the waste bin, not knowing where to put the thing,\u201d Goodine said. \u201cMultiply that by 50,000 people every day, and there\u2019s a lot of missed opportunities for the sustainable recovery of those materials.\u201d Using artificial intelligence\u2019s ability to analyze photographs, rStream\u2019s robot views each piece of trash inserted into the trailer through a camera, and attempts to match that image with other depictions of trash in its dataset. If the computer correlates an item with one of the recyclable materials in its database, it redirects it to be recycled.<\/p>\n
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If consumers confused about recycling rules are instigating the contamination problem, Somervillie-based robotics startup rStream believes they can solve it by using artificial intelligence to sort trash and recycling instead. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1792,"featured_media":180681,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,122,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collection-transfer-news","category-newsletter-headline","category-recycling-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n