New Japanese Robot Takes Recycling to the Next Level

Who doesn’t love robots? Whirring around and making our lives more comfortable, they are easily the most anticipated feature of the future. But robots who recycle? That’s just icing on the cake that students at Osaka University, in conjunction with Mitsubishi Electric Engineering Co, are ready to deliver:

Osaka University and Mitsubishi Electric Engineering Co. have designed a robot with laser-sensing technology that can distinguish six different types of plastic from all other garbage. The 5-foot 6-inch by 6-foot 9-inch machine identifies the plastic materials by analyzing the reflectivity of five different wavelengths of lasers on the garbage. Once it identifies the material, it sorts the garbage into different piles.

According to green tech blog EcoGeek, this efficient little robot is poised to revolutionize the ease with which we recycle. Currently, the biggest obstacle facing recycling in Japan is confusion over which types of plastic are recyclable and which aren’t, leading to lower recycling rates overall. The superior sorting skills of the robot will take out the guesswork by simply wicking away the unrecyclables from the pile, hopefully leading to heightened confidence in recycling and an increased rate in the long run.

Will this handy-dandy robot be showing up in everyday households any time soon? Probably not quite yet. Only one prototype exists at the moment, and the article quotes soon-to-be-produced models as pricing out at around $55,000–a price tag fit for businesses and industry more than your typical kitchen. That said, it’s a good indicator of things to expect in the future, and robots are always a good start.

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Blog Bites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.