Plastic-sorting bots to save the Earth, starting with Japan

Japanese researchers at the Mitsubishi Electric Engineering Corp and Osaka University have developed a robot that can truly help the planet, at least step by step. One of the biggest environmental problems we are facing today is the use of plastic, or more specifically our failure to recycle it properly. Despite many campaigns and attempts to get people motivated for sorting their garbage, the vast majority of plastic materials today still end up with the regular trash. Their slow-to-decompose nature means they are filling up the cities’ landfills and polluting the oceans at an alarming rate.

That’s why the robot, which is equipped with sensors and laser beams for sorting out and allocating the six different types of plastics that can be reused, is so important. Human workers lack this ability, and this is where one can see how beneficial robots can really be. Digging through the trash may not sound like the most glamorous job ever, but someone has to do it if we are to get back on the right track.

The robot itself looks more like a storage box, which is sort of what it’s supposed to be. It has a garbage slot tray with a weight scale, a transfer basket and recycling box, and a main display at the front, which contains the lazar senses that identify the different types of plastic. It is actually quite large in size, measuring up to 5ft 6ins (1.7m) by 6ft 9ins (2.1m).

Initially, a smaller version of the robot is going to be tested out at stores in Osaka and Nara, and is being released by the manufacturing company IDEC Corp. If the trial proves successful, more robots like this will be sold and put to work all over Japan for around $US 55,000.