That stat about AI recycling sorting accuracy blew my mind

Read in a waste management report last week that AI-powered sorting systems can identify and separate materials with 95% accuracy, compared to the 60% humans manage. Anyone else wonder why more cities aren't jumping on this tech?

3 comments

3 Comments

maryt6228d ago

Wait, is the cost factor the only thing holding cities back? The 35% accuracy gap seems huge enough to justify the investment. Maybe some places just haven't done the math yet.

the_robin1d ago

You ever think about the politics of it? Like, if a city invests millions in AI sorters and it still misses stuff, the mayor's gonna take the heat, not the tech company that sold it to them. Nobody wants to be the one who bet big on a flashy solution that flops in the local news.

hollyc9228d ago

A buddy of mine, Mike, works for a mid-sized city in Ohio and he told me they looked into these AI sorters a couple years back. They ran the numbers and found the upfront cost was just insane for their budget (like, millions for a single facility upgrade). Plus, there was pushback from the recycling plant workers who thought the AI would replace their jobs, which is a real concern when you're dealing with union contracts. Mike said they ended up buying a few smaller, cheaper sorters for one plant as a test, but the accuracy was way lower than 95% (more like 80%) because the tech wasn't tuned for their specific local waste stream. So even though the gap sounds huge, the real world install isn't always plug and play. It's a bummer because the potential is there, but a lot of cities just don't have the cash or the staff to make the switch smoothly.