– credit, Glacier Robots

From Tech Crunch comes the story of a trash-sorting robot that just got massive financial backing to improve America’s recycling infrastructure.

Recycling is a difficult industry, as consumers pay little attention to things they throw out, and recycling labor is an unwanted job, even among manual labor positions.

In response, Glacier, a 6-year-old startup hoping to tackle the problems with robotic arms and machine learning, has deployed its products to San Diego, Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles. But more needs to be done, as well over 1 billion tons of trash is created around the world annually.

Hoping that robotics can make up for human failings at both ends of the recycling process, a variety of venture capital and climate philanthropy funds have chucked $16 million at Glacier and its robots.

Capable of identifying 30 different types of material waste from trash speeding down a conveyor belt, the robots can due what humans just can’t, or wont’

“Every time we send people to audit our AI systems, the people just do so much worse,” Areeb Malik, Glacier’s CTO and second co-founder, told Tech Crunch. “AI is getting really powerful, being able to distinguish beyond what people can even notice.”

Additionally, Tech Crunch reports that materials recovery facilities (MRF) the official name of a recycling plant, have incredibly high turnover rates of employees compared to similar types of work.

ALSO CHECK TO: This Robot Expertly Takes Apart E-Waste So Their Components Can Be Reused

A typical MRF might hire five times a year for the same sorting position, and as Malik points out, all in the name of staffing an inferior set of eyes and hands.

Believing the cause is worth the cost, Glacier offers the sorting robots for outright purchase, or through a lease-to-own program. The firm offers an accompanied maintenance package, but will also allow companies to access the diagnostics data and repair manuals for fixing the bots themselves.

MORE TRASH SORTING ROBOTS: Robot Named Sorty McSortface Uses Mechanical Claws and AI to Sort Tons of Recyclables in Minutes

The robots collect data on recycling waste streams they are tackling, which the company then packages and offers as a research product to municipalities and businesses interested in understanding how much waste of any given type is being collected, how the material streams vary throughout the year, and other statistical data.

The Ecosystem Integrity Fund led the Series A financing round, and was backed by the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund and 10 other funds and intiatives.

WATCH the robot system in action…

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