One company in the US state of Colorado has a new lesson for artificial intelligence. And it could help people end the drudgery of sorting our trash. 

It’s challenging and repetitive work performed in a noisy environment. These sorters help keep the lines at Alpine Waste & Recycling moving. 

CGTN Photo

“The people we have are great at what they do,” said Brent Hildebrand, vice president of Alpine Waste & Recycling. “They sort really well.”

Hildebrand also had praise for one of his newer employees, six months on the job and getting better all the time. He is Clarke the robot.

“So Clarke, as he’s working right now, he’s watching everything that’s on the line,” said Natanya Horowitz, CEO of Amp Robotics. “And as he sees more and more material, he learns more and more.”

Clarke is Natanya Horowitz’s creation. The founder of Amp Robotics in Colorado used a National Science Foundation grant to build a device that uses artificial intelligence to pluck recyclable products from a conveyor belt. A recycling industry group helped sponsor Clarke’s effort to identify milk and juice cartons, something new technology now allows robots to do.

It’s not an entirely new idea. The movie robot WALL-E once confronted massive piles of garbage as the last robot on Earth. Other companies have also employed waste-sorting machines. Amp Robotics says its computer vision and machine learning cuts sorting costs. And robots come in handy when labor is scarce.

Cartons are Clarke’s focus now but it won’t be long before robots are sorting plastic products and things like construction and electronic waste.

For now, the focus is on improving the software and reducing Clarke’s error rate. His grip still needs some work.

With a growing world that keeps generating more of this stuff, job security may not be an issue for Clarke and all the smart sorters who are sure to follow.