Absolute recoil: robots will eliminate all environmental pollution

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Ever since the days of Ancient Greece, the issue of waste was acute. One of the exploits of Hercules - the cleaning of the Augean stables - was already within the power of only a demigod in those days. In Jerusalem, that part of the land where rubbish was dumped and where rubbish was burned was called Gehenna Fiery, which later became the general designation of hell.

In the Middle Ages, garbage and sewage were thrown from windows directly onto the street, which caused epidemics of diseases like typhus and plague. After centuries, we do not get rid of garbage through the windows, but store it at landfills, and in some countries we recycle it.

Every year, 2 billion tons of garbage are created in the world. In Russia, one family throws out more than 250 kg per year, as a result of which 38 billion tons have been accumulated. In terms of area, it is 4 million hectares, or Switzerland alone. Of course, garbage is not located in one place, but is distributed over thousands of landfills, including illegal ones. The most massive accumulations of garbage are landfills in Guangzhou and Hong Kong of one hundred hectares, a dump of electronic devices Guiyu in China for 5, 2 thousand hectares, or the Great Garbage Patch in the Ocean for 80 thousand tons.

Garbage in landfills burns, causing lung and eye problems or cancer in local residents. Garbage decomposes, gets into the soil, plants and groundwater and seas. Fish in the sea eat plastic, which is deposited in their tissues and ends up on our table. Even if the garbage is far away, it touches us.

The garbage problem is global. The demigod will no longer help her - robots have taken his place. They may be able to handle billions of tons of waste, because humans are not doing it yet. Let's take a look at how robots find, collect trash, control pollution sources, and help people.

Robots - cause and solution

We have already written about how robots help in sales and marketing: they meet guests in restaurants, hotels, play in performances and work as promoters. Long ago they took the place of people in production. They are also capable of destroying garbage, but, interestingly, they are directly related to the problem of this garbage.

Mass robotization began in the 50s and 60s of the last century, when industrial robots were introduced for the production of various goods: from cars to cosmetics. At first, robots performed simple operations, such as stamping stamps, then more complicated ones: cutting, welding and installing parts. Now fully automated factories are already operating, where the entire cycle of production tasks is robotized.

The robot does not get tired, does not ask for promotion, vacation pay and does not go on strike, and the efficiency is an order of magnitude higher than that of a human. Therefore, with the arrival of robots, there are more goods and services. More goods - more resource costs. More costs of resources and goods - more garbage. Robotization makes production cheaper, creates more value-added products, and accelerates the economy. If production grows, the waste of this production also grows.

However, the environment cannot accelerate. She cannot cope with the current garbage, what can we say about the future? In nature, there are simply no mechanisms, bacteria or animals that could process iron, glass or petroleum products. A few years ago, bacteria were discovered that decompose some types of plastic, but very slowly - 1 millimeter in 30 weeks. It will take bacteria thousands of years to cope with the current volume of plastic, even if all factories producing new ones are closed.

Robots are one of the causes of garbage problems, but they can also help us: collect, sort, dispose and recycle garbage.

Garbage cycle

Let's take a look at the life cycle of garbage, where robots can fit into the chain, and what exactly they can do.

Apart from production, the life of the waste is divided into stages:

Collection

Sorting

Processing

Disposal

Now all this is done by people. We collect garbage in bags and put it in bins. In some countries, such as Sweden, Finland or Switzerland, residents are required by law to additionally sort waste into glass, plastic, organic matter and other types. After the garbage has entered the bin, it is picked up by a garbage truck and transported to a distribution center, then to a landfill or to a waste recycling plant.

This first step - garbage collection - can be robotized.

Garbage collection and disposal

Waste collection machines

The first stage of garbage collection robotization is waste collection machines. They have already been implemented and are working in Sweden in supermarkets, pharmacies and gas stations. The machines accept small household and harmful waste: light bulbs, batteries, varnishes, adhesives, paints, spray cans, glass containers, cans. The vending machine gives out a reward for the received garbage.

This is how two tasks are solved. The first is to teach people with financial incentives not to throw garbage anywhere. The second is to automate the collection of waste in some way.

Such devices are still found in Russia only in small numbers - for example, in health food stores VkusVill. For almost two years now, the stores have had containers for receiving batteries. Every month they collect almost 10 tons of batteries, and the store spends 700 thousand rubles for the disposal of hazardous waste. There is no reward for donated batteries, but it is not needed - everything works on altruism. Separately, there are pandomats - devices for receiving plastic and aluminum bottles.

Smart waste containers

The neighbors of the Swedes, the Dutch in The Hague, have also taken this path and are introducing smart dumpsters. The containers have fullness sensors. Information about this is transmitted to the collection service four times a day. The software in the service analyzes the amount of garbage and builds a collection schedule - each time the route is different, depending on the data. Garbage collectors save time and money by not collecting half-empty bins, unnecessary driving along the route and without getting stuck in traffic jams. In addition, the system can plan a route for the next day, analyzing data for several days.

The sensors are in 1,400 underground garbage containers in The Hague. The manufacturer is the Enevo company from Finland. It produces sensors and waste analysis software and operates in 35 countries. Implementation of the system for government services and private companies has shown that automatic collection is more efficient than manual collection. Companies save 30% on waste collection costs using sensors and software. Savings can sometimes be as high as 50%.

In Russia, there is an analogue - a device from the Wasteout company. This is a device with built-in sensors: ultrasonic, temperature, tilt and a radio module for transmitting data on the fullness of the container. The system is similar to Enovo, but measurements are taken differently, so the patent is not infringed. Wasteout devices are installed in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kaluga. In Perm, they are used by the Bumatika company, which manages the landfill. The devices are configured to work in frost, heat and are protected from vandals.

Smart garbage trucks

If we give “smart” garbage containers, then why not do the same with garbage trucks? Seems like a logical step? Yes, that is right.

In 2017, two Swedish companies, the auto giant Volvo and the waste disposal company Renovo, launched a joint ROAR project - Robot-based Autonomous Refuse handling or robotic garbage truck.

The garbage truck is operated by a person, but part of the work is automated. New routes are laid by the driver, and the car remembers them. Next time the car will drive to the containers on its own using GPS, with minimal fuel consumption. The garbage truck remembers the location of tanks and other obstacles, can move in reverse and go around parked cars. It has sensors installed, and if it sees a cat, child or other moving object on the road, the car will stop. The only thing that a person does is operate a mechanism that loads waste into the body.

A year earlier, the same garbage trucks were equipped with drones to monitor tank load. But the project was not developed. A garbage truck without drones already works efficiently.

Cleaning of rivers and seas

A separate issue is the cleaning of seas, rivers and lakes. Trash is harder to control in water than on land. Currents carry waste to a variety of places, garbage accumulates at the bottom or in the water column. If there is no current, then the garbage remains off the coast and has to be removed manually.

How are the robots going to deal with this? Let's start small

Ports and coastal areas

RanMarine has developed the WasteShark robot that will float in ports and coastal areas and collect waste before it enters the open ocean. WasteShark is a floating plastic "box with a mouth" and an electric motor. The box “swallows” the garbage in the water and simultaneously analyzes the water quality, measures the temperature of the sea and air and transmits this data “to the shore”. The box operator corrects the course based on the data.

WasteShark has been tested in Rotterdam and is now picking up trash in the UK and Dubai.

In the future, RanMarine plans to assemble and release a large Great Waste Shark robot into the sea. He will be able to collect 500 kg of garbage at a time. The robot will be powered by solar panels and navigate the sea using a navigator.

Seas and lakes

A device similar in functionality - Marine Drone - was developed in France. The authors (International School of Design) decided to take apart the Great Garbage Patch. Marine Drone is similar to WasteShark but floats underwater. The robot is like a trash can with motors and batteries that floats and catches debris autonomously.

The robot swims to the place where the garbage is collected on the ship, then it is lowered, and the Marine Drone catches plastic bottles, bags, cardboard, simultaneously scaring the fish off with sound emitters. When the basket is full, the robot returns to the ship, where the collected waste is removed and the batteries are recharged.

A few more developments of marine cleaners

• Row-Bot is a small British-made robot that removes bacteria from water. It draws energy from the bacteria themselves, which it "digests" in itself.

• Seasarm from the USA - a floating conveyor that collects oil products from the surface of the water.

• FRED from ClearBlueSea - 30m sail platform that collects plastic at sea.

Big garbage spot

Removing coastal blockages of rivers, seas and lakes is a relatively simple task. Simple relative to the Large Garbage Patch. This is the largest landfill in the world - a garbage state in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is so huge that it looks like it will soon get its own flag and a seat at the UN.

Mostly the spot is made up of plastic and fishing nets. Plastic breaks down over time and under the influence of salt water, and then into particles ranging in size from a centimeter to a millimeter or less. The particles are suspended in water and form a "plastic soup". This soup feeds on plankton, it feeds on fish, and further along the food chain, plastic gets to our table.

Boyan Slat, a young inventor from the Netherlands, wants to solve this problem. Bojan founded Ocean Cleanup, a startup whose goal is to cleanse the ocean of plastic. Boyana's development is a giant, several tens or hundreds of meters, floating arm in the shape of a V, to which a net is attached. The net is sunk into the water at an angle and balances on anchors and small floats. The entire structure is stretched out into the sea, and debris gets into it thanks to the current.

Test "runs" were carried out off the coast of Holland, San Francisco and Japan, and now the construction is heading towards the Great Spot. Yes, Boyan's design is not a robot, but perhaps it will solve the biggest garbage problem without human intervention.

Waste sorting and recycling

The next step is sorting. It was decided to combine sorting and collection in China. Clean Robotics startup has introduced a symbiosis of a trash can and a sorting robot - Trashbot. The robot is a trash can with cameras, sensors, metal detectors and motors. When a person approaches the robot, sensors detect this and the motors open the tank lid. The debris falls inward and the system separates the debris into metal, plastic and other types.

The option is exotic. If you do not consider such strange hybrids of a garbage can and a sorting conveyor, then the classic method of sorting garbage goes in several stages:

Sorting into metal and non-metal

Sorted by weight

Department of plastic

Paper separation

Separation of food waste

Manual sorting of residues by workers who, according to certain rules, separate the garbage

Each stage is divided into sub-stages. It all depends on the level of development of processing enterprises in the country. Waste, which is laid out in different containers, is sent to special plants for technological processing.

Sorting of construction waste

As with other monotonous work, the sorting step is automated. The company ZenRobotics from Finland has created a Recycler technology that combines three stages into one, but so far only for construction waste.

Physically, a robot is two manipulators, a conveyor belt, volumetric containers and sensors: video cameras of various types and metal detectors. Nonphysically - artificial intelligence, which is based on an adaptive search algorithm. The algorithm uses the principles of the functioning of the human brain. They show him samples of garbage, indicate what type it corresponds to, and the algorithm learns to find a similar one in the total mass of waste.

Debris is fed onto a conveyor belt, and sensors and a trained robot's algorithm determine the material of the item. The robot grabs an object weighing up to 20 kg with the manipulator and directs it to the appropriate storage container or conveyor belt for processing. The robot's accuracy is 98%.

If the robot cannot recognize a piece of garbage, then it will go along the conveyor to a separate container, and then again to the beginning of the conveyor. Compared to the manual method, such sorting is more efficient even with errors. The sorting system can be composed of two or more robots. The robot's software is self-learning and further works more accurately.

A similar robot for cleaning construction waste has been developed in China. In Songjiang, one of the districts of Shanghai, cars the size of a five-story building are clearing debris from a construction site. They separate the waste into soil, sand, bricks and waste for incineration. Robots crush large fractions of concrete, stones or mortar to make it easier to transport them to the landfill. Construction waste is very dusty, but this problem was solved with a water curtain. In one hour, the robot processes 300 tons of garbage. This is equivalent to the work of 25 people.

These robots are pilot robots. They plan to improve the device this year. The design is carried out by the CSG Robot Base research center. The plans are to reach a processing level of 600 thousand tons per year. China is a country with continuous construction. The construction industry accounts for 6-7% of the country's GDP, so such robots are doomed to be used everywhere.

Sorting into different types

Another similar sorter was developed in Germany. Gunther Envirotech has developed the Splitter sorting plant. Unlike its counterparts from Finland, the German device does not use sensors, sensors or software. Instead, the mechanics work: augers and shafts of a certain shape sort the waste according to shape, size and weight into three categories. The sorting of garbage by the Splitter robot is rough and suitable for primary fractionation.

Further evolution of sorters will follow the path of complication. Garbage will be sorted into concrete, light and heavy bricks, aerated concrete, silicate, gypsum, asbestos. Outside the construction industry, robots need to get even more complicated: sorting into plastic, paper, wood, electronic devices, cloth, food waste, medicine. Each category requires a division by weight, size and type, for example, cardboard and paper.

This path is already on the way at MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology. RoCycle robot sorter in development. As conceived, the robot is able to determine the type of material. To do this, he has tactile sensors, and in the future cameras and computer vision will be added.

There are quite a few other active sorting robots

• AMP Cortex from AMP Robotics in the USA. The robot extracts the cardboard with a suction cup from the debris stream on the conveyor. Garbage is determined by means of software that can be updated through the "cloud".

• Robots Liam. In the USA, he dismantles outdated iPhones, and in England - TVs with picture tubes.

• Robot SamurAI from Canada's Machinex Technologies. Recognizes plastic, cardboard, boxes, packaging with machine vision. The accuracy of a robot is already equal to that of a human.

• Russian robot for sorting waste from the GC "Environmental and Energy Technologies". It recognizes 20 types of plastic among other debris that moves along the conveyor, due to not just cameras, but a spectrometer that scans for chemical composition and color.

There are also young Russian projects that have not yet brought their products to the market. Among them is Neuro Recycling, a resident of YotaLab. The company is developing a waste sorting system using medium and light duty robots that are controlled by a neural network. The project team has 120 people, 50 of them are engaged in development.

Robot-human tandem

The prospect of introducing robotization in waste collection, sorting and recycling is real. Already now, using the technologies that are "on hand", without considering utopian or fantastic ideas, it is possible to automate and robotize the stages of garbage life.

How might it look like?

Smart trash cans. When they are full, they signal to the "control center", the software receives the signal and forms a route.

Garbage is picked up by a semi-automatic garbage truck that can park on its own and remembers the way.

At the transfer point, the garbage is sorted by robotic conveyors into plastic, glass, cardboard, food waste and put into separate containers. Certain types of waste are compacted with a press, collected in blocks or bags and sent either to a landfill or to a waste processing plant.

At the factory mechanically: cranes, manipulators, carriers; garbage is sent for recycling.

Conveyor robots for sorting construction and civil waste are already in operation. Waste robotization reduces the percentage of waste that goes to landfills and increases the percentage of recycled waste. Automation can be profitable: replacing a robot with a dozen people on sorting and a few drivers on a garbage truck reduces costs and increases efficiency. This is a completely logical stage in the development of mankind, the same as the automation of workers' labor in factories. Although absolute autonomy is not yet possible, the tandem of robots and humans in the garbage sphere is quite real.