SEATTLE (Recycling Monster): The City of Kalamazoo is joining the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE); The Recycling Partnership; and Saskatchewan-based Canadian cleantech startup Prairie Robotics to launch a contamination reduction campaign. The campaign uses high-tech cameras, global positioning systems, and computers on City recycling trucks to check the contents of curbside recycling carts and tailor constructive feedback as needed, household by household.
“The City of Kalamazoo has a long history of recycling, and last May launched a new campaign with The Recycling Partnership to expand recycling and improve resident education,” said Justin Gish, sustainability planner for the City of Kalamazoo. “This new project builds on Kalamazoo’s comprehensive recycling participation education and outreach program. It delivered in-home bins to nearly 1,600 homes and educational mailers to roughly 14,000 single-family households currently opted into the recycling program to bolster their recycling efforts.”
The campaign is spearheaded by the City of Kalamazoo Department of Public Services and is funded with $104,500 in grants and technical support from EGLE and national nonprofit The Recycling Partnership. The aim is to promote more and better recycling while decreasing the number of contaminated materials that are inadvertently deposited in recycling carts.
“The Recycling Partnership is eager to continue working with EGLE and Michigan communities to improve residential recycling across the state,” said Samantha Longshore, Community Program Manager at The Recycling Partnership. “We are excited to provide personalized feedback to community members to help support a strong recycling program.”
The project is a modified version of The Recycling Partnership’s “Feet on the Street” cart-tagging recycling program—a community-wide initiative to improve the quality of recycling in curbside recycling carts by providing residents with personalized and real-time curbside recycling education and feedback. Traditionally, this is done by temporary workers tagging carts on the street if contaminants – items that aren’t accepted for curbside recycling, such as plastic bags – are in the recycling cart.
Through the project, instead of a person reviewing contents and placing a tag on curbside recycling carts, Prairie Robotics will retrofit the city’s recycling collection trucks with state-of-the-art smart camera technology. Using machine-learning techniques, the technology scans the material as it is mechanically dumped from each recycling cart into the truck and recognizes unacceptable items such as plastic bags, polystyrene foam, yard waste, and trash. Such items are flagged in real-time, allowing for a personalized postcard or digital notification to be sent to a resident with information about how they can recycle better.
The City of Kalamazoo becomes the fifth Michigan municipality to embrace Prairie Robotics technology for contamination reduction. The City of East Lansing was the first Michigan municipality to pilot the program with support from EGLE, Prairie Robotics, and The Recycling Partnership. Results show contamination was reduced by nearly 25%.
“We are excited to work with the City of Kalamazoo to test this technology and partner with The Recycling Partnership and Prairie Robotics,” said Emily Freeman, an EGLE Materials Management Division Recycling Specialist. “Recycling properly saves taxpayers’ money by reducing costly damage to equipment, as well as the expense of sending contaminated, otherwise recyclable material to the landfill.”
Courtesy: www.wasteadvantagemag.com