Robotic sorting is driving carton recycling into the future - Recycling Product News

During the 2017 project pilot phase, the Carton Council provided MRFs with grants to purchase and work with AMP to install carton-sorting robots. The first was at Alpine Waste & Recycling in Colorado, followed soon after by one at Dem-Con Companies in Minnesota. Past the pilot phase, the robots are now ready for prime time and there have been growing numbers of installations in the U.S. and Canada. This summer, another carton-sorting robot was installed at Single Stream Recyclers in Sarasota, Florida, along with several robots to sort other valuable materials and help to reduce contamination. With arms and grippers that can pick materials out of the recycling stream faster and with a higher rate of accuracy than their human counterparts, these robots utilize a vision centre with a camera that allows for monitoring materials as they pass through on a conveyer belt.