The robot solving America’s trash crisis | Hard Reset

This robot sorts trash with 99% accuracy.

Americans produce about five pounds of waste per person per day. Over 90% of this waste is recoverable in some way.

The massive amount of waste needs to be sorted, and robots powered by artificial intelligence can be trained to sort trash accurately.

The AI's core technology is a vision system that is able to recognize specific pieces of garbage, no matter how mangled or dirty it might be.

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Read more of our stories on recycling:
New tech “upcycles” junk plastic, reducing its carbon footprint
This company is tackling Kuwait’s ‘tire graveyard’ problem by tire recycling
Why is Singapore making beer from recycled wastewater?
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Watch our original series:

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About Freethink
No politics, no gossip, no cynics. At Freethink, we believe the daily news should inspire people to build a better world. While most media is fueled by toxic politics and negativity, we focus on solutions: the smartest people, the biggest ideas, and the most ground breaking technology shaping our future.
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Enjoy Freethink on your favorite platforms:

[freethink]

Do you think AI can help tackle our trash problem?

[YouVSMeTV]

This seems pretty amazing. Now it’s about money, scaling and convincing people it works.

[Zevbutt]

When he said “whatever those changes are, i dont think we’re looking at a very long time period; Not fifty years but ten years.” I cried a few happy tears

[akashjoshi]

A very good use of Machine learning to actually solve the world problems rather than just being used for creating images for magazine cover pages.Good Work AMP keep up your hardwork and best wishes in your journey in helping out all earthlings out of this mess.

[notlessgrossman]

I've been waiting for this for a while to show up.. Every retail and manufacturing company including Amazon should help fund these Ai powered recycling facility.

[ceptember.]

*our trash problem needs a major solution on a massive scale.*

businesses really need to get onboard with cutting the way they pollute and disallowing one-time use packaging

[JadenFox]

I *LOVE* the humor Freethink has been increasingly adding to their programs. Nice job Freethink!!

[MarkBlance]

Could this technology be used to break down existing landfills? That might be quite the reuse scenario.

[kingyveltal]

I’m nearly crying, after I was told AI could never accomplish feats like this years back. Imagine my surprise that these guys made it. YOU GO GUYS!!!!

[trinathebookworm]

I remember seeing a video of people in India picking through trash and living in filthy conditions. Set some of these up there, the staff is already there. Teach them to run the machines and pay them a percentage of how much landfill material is processed. They'll run them 24 7 and invest in new machines to expand the operations, creating new jobs and better conditions.

[o-o_pingu]

Love it how some of your videos are full of humor that doesn't distract from the topic, but keeps my attention on the video. Great job, please keep it up! :D

[Ninjaeule]

As a former chemist, I would like to know how they tell all the plastic types apart with just a camera. It can be done with special equipment (different wavelengths of light), but as far as I know, it isn't that fast (one item at a time). Would love to be wrong.

[Mace]

in germany we have something called "mülltrennung". we have at least 4 different trash bins for different kind of trash. take notes america.

[freeman]

Don't forget to give your really icky plastics/recyclables a good rinse before sending them to the blue bin as well, it really does help quite a bit, one dirty bottle can ruin a whole bale of plastics depending on what is it

[BishwajitPaulGoogler]

The hilarious way this guy speaks haha ..Name joke cracked me up loud 🤣

[uniworkhorse]

I always thought "Man wouldn't it be cool if trash recognition was a thing in the future" - so cool to see that innovation happen in realtime with AI!

[sofastealeroffensive]

Damn Michael reeves I’m proud of you turning that tomato salad picker to an awesome recycle factory👑

[philip_fletcher]

There will come time when we are regularly mining landfill sites (there is already limited mining).

[Ripsticker]

The editing, diverse content, and rich dialog in these videos are un-matched. Also all heading light on things that are great for business and our planet.

[innerrevision]

It's kinda best to see it in context of the whole video - but at :06:20 I had the biggest laugh I've had in years!