AI + Waste Management
If managed and disposed of improperly or inefficiently, waste can create and cause serious problems all the way from an individual level to a societal level. For example, if certain types of waste are left in landfills they can spread harmful diseases, especially lung infections such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, and influenza which are caused by pathogens released into the air by medical waste. If waste isn’t being recycled efficiently, then landfills can end up becoming a lot bigger than it needs to be. This ultimately leads to extra greenhouse gas emissions being emitted from landfills, that could’ve been reduced. There are also other examples such as waste not being efficiently collected leading to increased air pollution, waste accidentally leaking into the water people drink due to not being properly disposed of, and many other examples.
Unfortunately, all these things happen and this is down to waste management being mostly controlled and done by humans. With humans in charge, there is always the aspect of human error occurring and therefore society is facing all these inefficient waste management issues. However, the significant growth in AI provides society with the hope that waste management can become a lot more efficient and close to error-free. AI is already being used to significantly improve the process and efficiency of waste management. In this blog post, I will discuss the present and future applications of AI in waste management and how AI can significantly improve the process of waste management.
AI in Waste Type Detection
The first application of AI in waste management is that it can be used to detect and separate out certain types of waste. Often times in waste management certain types of waste need to be separated for either safety or sustainability reasons. For example, hazardous waste needs to be separated from the normal waste and disposed of separately in specified landfills. This is because if they are left in regular landfills, they can cause big environmental and health problems in the local area. Another example is that waste needs to be separated into wet and dry waste where wet waste is typically organic waste that can be used for composting purposes. By composting wet waste, a large amount of landfill space can be saved which is beneficial for the environment as less greenhouse gas emissions will be emitted. However, until recently most of this process was controlled by human workers which made the whole process slow and not entirely efficient as a good portion of dry and hazardous waste wasn’t separated.
AI can however revolutionize this process as it can use image detection machine learning algorithms to detect certain types of waste. It is already being implemented as AI is being combined with robotic arms to detect and then remove certain types of waste, and this technology will only continue to become more advanced in the future.
AI in Recycling
Similar to waste type detection, recycling waste requires the detection of certain types of materials. Some items are of high value that can be recycled into high-quality products, while other items are of no value and need to be disposed of away. AI can greatly speed up this process as it can implement algorithms to quickly detect and separate out the different qualities of materials. By greatly speeding up the process, there will be a whole lot more recycled products that will be able to enter the market, which will benefit the economy. Secondly, AI can help with creating higher-quality recycled products by fine-tuning certain materials. For example, there is PET plastic material, which can be a highly valuable recycling material, but if the PET contains thermoforms it can be a significantly lower value recycling material. AI algorithms can be used however to detect PET plastics that contain thermoforms and then separate the thermoforms from the plastic. This way a lot more higher quality products will be able to get produced. On top of this, AI can also help detect and separate out recyclable items that were thrown in the waste bin. There is a ton of material that is recyclable that doesn’t actually get recycled, especially for plastics and therefore AI can be extremely helpful in detecting materials that could be used for recycling. This way a good portion of the waste going into landfills can be reduced, through the use of AI.
AI in Route Planning
On top of the whole waste management process, there is also the waste collection process. Overall, this requires a lot of collective driving for garbage trucks, which translates to high greenhouse gas emissions. Through efficient routing, a lot of the miles that garbage trucks need to drive can be saved which will result in a lot less greenhouse gasses being emitted. AI can significantly help in this process by suggesting fuel-efficient routes to garbage trucks that drivers can use to collect all the waste they need while minimizing their greenhouse gas emissions. This is already being implemented through the Eco-Friendly Navigation feature in Google Maps, which suggests to drivers the most fuel-efficient routes based on examining road incline, traffic congestion, number of traffic, population density, and many other factors.
Conclusion
Overall, it is clear to see that AI has the potential to play a huge role in the waste management industry. It can first play a huge role in preventing society from facing relatively serious health problems as it can be used to detect and separate out hazardous waste from other regular waste. Next, it can be used to reduce a good amount of greenhouse gas emissions by detecting and separating out wet waste and reusing it for composting. This helps reduce the amount of waste that goes into landfills, which leads to fewer greenhouse gas emissions being emitted from waste. Additionally, AI can be used to collect waste in an efficient way, by suggesting to garbage truck drivers fuel-efficient routes, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Lastly, AI can be used to make recycling a lot more efficient and better, which benefits the economy as there are more high-quality recycled products entering the economy. Ultimately, it is clear AI has huge potential to benefit waste management and therefore it should continue to be developed and promoted.
About Inspirit AI
AI Scholars Live Online is a 10 session (25-hour) program that exposes high school students to fundamental AI concepts and guides them to build a socially impactful project. Taught by our team of graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and more, students receive a personalized learning experience in small groups with a student-teacher ratio of 5:1.
