Waste Case

“Americans are really, really good at throwing things away. The country produces nearly 300 million tons of trash a year, and billions of dollars in reusable materials end up in landfills, even after passing through recycling bins. The problem has always been sorting it all — pulling the wheat from the chaff or in this case, the aluminum can from the dirty diaper.” Can AI solve the problem? Robots, cameras, and lots of data about garbage: Inside the recycling industry’s new bet. (With our luck, sorting through garbage will be the one job our AI overlords let us keep…)