Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made
<i>Reposting a seattle subreddit comment because it would be mostly relevant here (we have trash &#x2F; recycling &#x2F; compost collection)</i>.<p>As a suggestion to all the robotics &#x2F; computer vision &#x2F; AI geeks out there: Build an automated trash sorter with a very high degree of accuracy.<p>If you want the incentive, here it is. Everybody has 3 separate bins. By having 3 separate bins, not only do we force lazy people to think about how they classify their waste into those 3 separate bins, but we also end up with 3 different waste trucks driven by 3 different drivers back and forth between 3 different waste depots. And we still get it wrong, misclassifying compostable things as recyclable, recyclable as trash, etc., forcing us to pay for processing costs to sort out the 40+% of stuff that gets misclassified.<p>This adds up. Waste management is a $75B industry [0]. Let&#x27;s break down how money is spent, and how your system will help:<p>1) 55% is spent on collection. Your sorter can eliminate up to 2&#x2F;3 of that, but due to variant efficiency factors maybe it is only 1&#x2F;2. This is about $21B in potential savings.<p>2) Treatment and disposal account for 20%. This includes remedial sortation (fixing the problems created by people who misclassified their waste), type-based sortation (things like separating glass from plastic, as well as separating the different types of plastic). A good automated sortation system will save at least 20% of these costs, resulting in another $3B in potential savings.<p>3) There are unaccounted for missed opportunities. Sortation costs force us to make compromises; instead of the more expensive sorting of thermoplastics from thermosets, which would result in higher resale value, we sometimes chop them all up and sell them as a lower valued aggregate for things like road asphalt. I have no idea how much is missed, but I do know that recycled thermoplastics have a resale value that is a good 10x higher than what they get out of that chopped aggregate.<p>4) Additionally, we have massive landfills that have accumulated billions of tons of trash that, due to oxygen starvation in landfills, isn&#x27;t biodegrading any time soon. If your system can extract valuable recyclable materials from trash and resell them, you could meaningfully create a second-hand mining industry with basically free land rights.   I have trouble seeing anywhere less than 10s of billions of dollars in annual market from this alone.<p>So there you have it. You can make everyone&#x27;s lives easier, save us time, save us money, save the environment, and you&#x27;ll have the waste management industry groveling at your feet at the chance to save them $24B a year, possibly much much more. Do it already.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gridwaste.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2014&#x2F;8&#x2F;20&#x2F;10l92d52vzaw1zdsf0znubdqpttq7k" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gridwaste.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2014&#x2F;8&#x2F;20&#x2F;10l92d52vzaw1zdsf0z...</a>