EverestLabs' robots sort recyclables with help of AI

From the Fall 2024 issue of Plastics Recycling.

By Karen Hanna 

The 400 garbage trucks that roll into Fresno, California’s Cedar Avenue Recycling and Transfer Station (CARTS) six days a week bring all manner of waste. Crushed boxes, construction debris and smashed cans tumble around alongside broken glass, and occasionally hazardous waste, which the company warns customers against putting in their bins via its Facebook page.  

Recovering value from all that takes a lot of hands, and over the years, family-owned Caglia Environmental—which runs four waste-recovery sites in California, including CARTS—has gone high-tech by acquiring robots. 

With the support of the Recycling Partnership, the company recently set up three six-axis Fanuc robots, all offered as a turnkey solution from EverestLabs. 

Using EverestLabs’ RecycleOS—an artificial intelligence (AI), analytics and robotics software solution—the robots sort polyethylene terephthalate (PET) from three categories: pigmented or opaque PET, PET bottles and thermoforms. CARTS installed the first one on its last-chance line in August 2023, and the two others on its quality-control line in December. 

The robots join AI-powered robots already employed for the recovery of polypropylene and high-density polyethylene, as well as four optical sorters for various waste streams. 

“Most recycling facilities face labor challenges, and Caglia is no exception,” says Justin Raymond, director of post-collection operations for Caglia. “We found that we didn’t always have enough staff to fill all the sorting positions throughout the facility. As a result, when EverestLabs robotics was proposed for our last-chance line, we were interested, as it would increase revenue and decrease their labor challenges.” 

According to EverestLabs CEO JD Ambati, with the RecycleOS software, robots can identify over 50 classes of objects, including plastics, metals, aluminum, glass, cardboard and foam in a matter of seconds—even when they’ve been mangled. 

The software helps recycling plant operators to recover more value from materials, ensuring a high-quality feedstock for packaging manufacturers interested in incorporating more recyclate in their goods.  

In addition to its sorting software, EverestLabs provides closed-loop monitoring of all its robotics systems. Its Robotics Operations Center, Ambati writes in an email, “provides 24/7 monitoring of robot, AI and plant performance and health for your RecycleOS system, alerting EverestLabs and your facility if our AI for recycling system needs to be checked on.”  

Data collected by the system can help companies track and verify their sustainability efforts. 

The RecycleOS system is compatible with all kinds of robots, but six-axis robots offer a slew of advantages, including reliability, versatility and accuracy. 

“We realized that with a purpose-built AI and automation platform we can transform recycling plant operations and sustainable packaging manufacturing,” Ambati says. 

The robots are one project of many supported by the Recycling Partnership in its work to improve recycling access, collections, operations and processing. In addition to investing in technology, the partnership—through its material specific coalitions, including the PET Recycling Coalition—has supported the expansion of residential curbside recycling cart and drop-off recycling programs, as well as access to educational programs.  

“The underlying goal of all of our grants is to improve the performance of residential recycling in the U.S.,” says Rob Taylor, the partnership’s vice president of grants and community development. 

Robots offer a lot of benefits for recycling, Ambati says.  

“Robots and recycling may seem unlikely companions, but robots are improving the recycling process for the better,” he says. “Our AI technology identifies the materials sent to recycling facilities an determines which pieces of packaging or contamination the robot will pick and which to leave on the line. Robotics sorting is super-helpful because it is more accurate and efficient than traditional hand sorting in quality control and net new recovery roles, where overworked employees are repetitively sorting materials for eight hours a day and can barely sort 10 - 15 objects per minute.”  

But the new robots set up by EverestLabs can make 60 picks a minute, Raymond says.  

He characterizes CARTS’ use of the robots as “a first of its kind in single-stream" materials-recovery facilities (MRFs).  

“EverestLabs’ real-time and easy-to-use analytics platform, alongside an easily retrofittable robotic cell with zero disruptions and guaranteed highest recovery in the industry, is what appealed to us. The product is flexible and reliable, and the EverestLabs team is easy to work with," he says.  

To determine how robots might best help its partners, EverestLabs first sets up a site visit.  

Ambati says installation of EverestLabs robots takes only a few days, and fine-tuning of the robots—to get them to an accuracy level of over 95 percent—takes one or two weeks.  

In the last year, EverestLabs has partnered with packaging manufacturers and nonprofits to increase the recovery of recyclable materials, including plastic. 

The approach has been working for CARTS and Caglia, as well as other facilities that have adopted EverestLabs technologies. 

With robots, facilities can double or even triple the volumes of materials they’re able to recover, as well as better protect workers and curb waste. Robot uptime can hit 99 percent. According to EverestLabs, return on investment takes as little as three months.  

As an example, the EverestLabs website cites the case of a large MRF that turned $2 million in annual losses into $400,000 in new net revenues. Alameda County Industries, based in San Leandro, California, is another success story—it saved 60 percent on labor costs and now experiences uptime rates exceeding 99 percent. 

For recycling facilities looking to improve, the Recycling Partnership is one source of possible help.  

Grants for technology upgrades have included a new optical sorter and related equipment for the Pico Rivera waste-management facility in Los Angeles, which will be able to increase the amount of waste it can recycle by 70 percent. Meanwhile, with the adoption of optical sorters to separate PET bottles from non-bottle PET containers, such as cups, tubs and trays, 850,000 people in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area now can recycle non-bottle PET for the first time, according to the Recycling Partnership.  

 By the end of 2027, the PET coalition aims to capture an additional 250 million pounds of PET for recycling.  

Caglia and CARTS embody the potential the coalition sees for improvement. 

“The Partnership's PET Recycling Coalition awarded a grant that allowed Cagila Environmental to implement bold and replicable new systems for PET recycling, putting them to be at the forefront of separating PET into specialized streams,” Taylor says.  

As Ambati says, with the right technology, a lot of waste can find new life.  

Casarra Aragon, Caglia’s marketing and outreach manager, and Raymond are seeing that that’s the case. 

“This system sets a new standard in the recycling industry, improving PET recovery rates and serving as a model for other Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs),” Aragon wrote in an email. 

In all, Caglia employs 250 people. With the robots, Caglia hasn’t cut its workforce—but it has grown more efficient.  

CARTS recycles more than 70 percent of the waste it collects, Raymond says. Ten thousand tons of trash comes in every week—and now, more of it can be recovered.  

“The workforce size has not been impacted,” Raymond says. “Human sorters are still an essential piece of our process. While the addition of AI has increased our efficiency and recovery rates, it has not resulted in any loss of jobs. Some of our staff on the sort line have been transitioned into new roles at our MRF where they still play crucial parts in our recovery process.” 

Contact:

EverestLabs Inc., Fremont, California, www.everestlabs.ai  

The Recycling Partnership, Washington, D.C., 877-514-8774, https://recyclingpartnership.org/grants/ about