Waste not, want not: the smart recycling robot

In Milan, Italy, STIIMA, the National Research Council's Institute for Smart Industrial Technology Systems for Advanced Manufacturing, and the Polytechnic University of Milan have set up a joint experimental "re-manufacturing" and "de-manufacturing" facility. While still at a pilot experimental level, this is an excellent example of the enormous potential of artificial intelligence in the circular economy. This is because there are no similar plants in the world capable of managing electronic waste, understanding what the items are, dismantling them and recovering their useful or valuable components. For this reason, millions of tonnes of old TVs, monitors, broken PCs, telephones, and electrical appliances of every type, are piling up at waste sites, from where they are often taken to fuel an illegal and extremely polluting market. Its real size is difficult to estimate, but according to UNEP, the United Nations Environmental Protection agency, the global market for electronic waste is worth more than 62 billion dollars and only 20% of it is officially recycled.