[Jolly2 (OP)]

How far are we from developing robotic assistance to sort waste to better facilitate waste management and recycling?

Would a robotic waste management facility be more realistic?

Or would it be more practical and less environmentally damaging to have robotic equipment either in the home or on each street?

[Hayseed]

Right now, robotics are good for mundane repetitive tasks.  Such as assembly or mail delivery.  But there is great improvement in the field.

Much waste can not be sorted even with trained humans, because it can not be identified easily and quickly.    Damage, discoloration, or a change in composition.   Some kind of EM scanner is needed to exactly identify what's in the waste, and then switch waste to appropriate path.  We would have to use an EM spectrum catalog for materials......elements, compounds, proteins, etc.  We could start out with the nasty harmful materials first.  But we should be able to catalog every object and material shortly, with this new THz technology.

Or maybe you were referring to the waste as a neighborhood sort, for the garbage truck?

Paper, glass and cans?

[Bored chemist]

with this new THz technology.

Why THz?
Why not IR?

[Petrochemicals]

It would be far more simple to make all food packaging waste from a single material, thick enough to be recycled. It may cost more to begin with but it would be cheaper in the long run. Alot of items end up with plastic coating, a cup made from polystyrene is far easier to recycle than a paper one with a plastic lining that you may as well burn.

[Hayseed]

Bchem........I consider the THz frequencies to be IR.  Red light is 400-480 THz.  From there, down to 1 THz, I call the THz band.  I know most call it IR.  But I like to use frequency, instead of wavelength.  It's inconvenient to use wavelength with reactance and resonance. So, I describe and explain in that manor.

Pchem......if waste was just food packaging, we wouldn't have a waste problem.  Batteries and chemicals and all kinds of crap.   Medicine, and drugs, nano materials, will probably be even a bigger problem.

[Bored chemist]

You may find communication easier if you don't randomly redefine words like terahertz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terahertz_radiation

[alancalverd]

Actually it's the food waste that causes problems. Sorting plastic, glass and metals is fairly straightforward but most domestic plastic and paper is not reusable because it is contaminated with food residues.

Industrial scrap is mostly well characterised. Recycling things like batteries and light bulbs has been going on for decades if not a century or two, and bulk single plastic waste is very useful stuff. Scrap buyers have some cool technology to spot incoming radioactive material and suchlike, and the resellers employ chemists and metallurgists to certify their product.   

Stuff pre-sorted into council tips is really ideal for manual handling  because it is mostly stuff that was made to be handled - old bicycles, cans of paint, etc.  and the human brain is very good at identifying and refining the junk.

A robotic postman is fine as long as everyone has a standardised postbox at ground floor level and no steps, and all letters are fully addressed with permanent rainproof standard typefaces or barcodes. Problem arises when Dave (let's call the robot after our local postman) has a handwritten letter for Ms Green at Orchard House. Postcode is good (it's the old orchard) but not the house name. Does he sender mean Orchard Lodge, Orchard Cottage or Orchard Grange? How would you program a Delivery of Address-Vectored Envelopes robot to deliver Ms Green's letter? Human Dave knows that the Smiths live in the Lodge, Jones's in the Cottage, and Mr Brown's wife died 3 years ago, so it's possible that Ms Green has moved in with him. Ring the Grange doorbell and ask whoever answers if they know a Ms Green.   

[Jolly2 (OP)]

Actually it's the food waste that causes problems.

Chicken feed, compost, worm farms. Cats and dog food pretty much covers everything.  What food do you find especially difficult?

Or do you mean it covers everything else. Honestly people should be separating food waste from other waste.

Sorting plastic, glass and metals is fairly straightforward but most domestic plastic and paper is not reusable because it is contaminated with food residues.

Industrial scrap is mostly well characterised. Recycling things like batteries and light bulbs has been going on for decades if not a century or two, and bulk single plastic waste is very useful stuff. Scrap buyers have some cool technology to spot incoming radioactive material and suchlike, and the resellers employ chemists and metallurgists to certify their product.   

Stuff pre-sorted into council tips is really ideal for manual handling  because it is mostly stuff that was made to be handled - old bicycles, cans of paint, etc.  and the human brain is very good at identifying and refining the junk.

A robotic postman is fine as long as everyone has a standardised postbox at ground floor level and no steps, and all letters are fully addressed with permanent rainproof standard typefaces or barcodes. Problem arises when Dave (let's call the robot after our local postman) has a handwritten letter for Ms Green at Orchard House. Postcode is good (it's the old orchard) but not the house name. Does he sender mean Orchard Lodge, Orchard Cottage or Orchard Grange? How would you program a Delivery of Address-Vectored Envelopes robot to deliver Ms Green's letter? Human Dave knows that the Smiths live in the Lodge, Jones's in the Cottage, and Mr Brown's wife died 3 years ago, so it's possible that Ms Green has moved in with him. Ring the Grange doorbell and ask whoever answers if they know a Ms Green.   

I was thinking that a house hold robotic bin, could sort the waste as entered. It would be more small scale and could also clean materials at the same time. Would probably need to take up some house space, household waste rooms could be added to house designs.

For public bins a machine you could throw any black sack full of all manner of rubbish in and it would be able to sort it all would be optimal.

[Bored chemist]

Or do you mean it covers everything else. Honestly people should be separating food waste from other waste.

And exactly how do I remove the grease from the pizza box?

Another major problem for waste processing is things inside other things.
A plastic bag inside a paper bag is easy for a human to recognise and separate.
It's more of an issue for a machine.

[Jolly2 (OP)]

Or do you mean it covers everything else. Honestly people should be separating food waste from other waste.

And exactly how do I remove the grease from the pizza box?

You get in your hands and knees and scrub with tissue paper.

Paper recycling treatment process deals with those issues.

Another major problem for waste processing is things inside other things.
A plastic bag inside a paper bag is easy for a human to recognise and separate.
It's more of an issue for a machine.

Hence robotic development.

[Bored chemist]

Hence robotic development.

No.
Hence the use of people- the machines can't do it.

You get in your hands and knees and scrub with tissue paper.

And exactly how do I remove the grease from the pizza box tissue paper?

[LookOut2021]

It would be far more simple to make all food packaging waste from a single material, thick enough to be recycled. It may cost more to begin with but it would be cheaper in the long run. Alot of items end up with plastic coating, a cup made from polystyrene is far easier to recycle than a paper one with a plastic lining that you may as well burn.

I agree with that. These whole material mixing is, what makes recycling difficult. It's also pretty nasty that this packaging materials often trick consumers into thinking there are out of paper/plastic/whatever and easy to recycle, while in reality you would need a whole industry just for seperating those things.

Personally, I would prefer pure paper over plastic but I got the idea.

[scientistlover1]

Hey guys,

I agree with you. It might be difficult for a robot to separate the waste, because many different materials come together and have to be separated accordingly. The difficulty here would be that the robots have to recognise and separate the materials. Even people have problems with this.

But it would be an improvement and it's a nice idea. Maybe it's an option when we're about to use less plastic and more pure paper.

Best regards