Robots move in as waste firms struggle to find staff

Waste management firms are deploying humanoid robots to tackle hazardous working conditions and a 40% annual staff turnover rate [1]. A British firm is training a robot named Alpha to sort recyclables on a conveyor belt [1]. The Sharp Group's facility in Rainham, east London, processes up to 280,000 tonnes of mixed recycling annually [1]. Work-related injury and ill-health in the waste sector is 45% higher than other industries, with a fatality rate that is a multiple of the national average [1]. "The belt is moving all the time, you're constantly picking. I go through a lot of pickers because they just aren't up to the job," says line supervisor Ken Dordoy [1]. Built by RealMan Robotics in China, the Alpha robot is being adapted for recycling by TeknTrash Robotics [1]. It is currently in a training phase, guided by a worker using a VR headset to record picking movements [1]. The system, called HoloLab, uses camera data to train the robot's AI [1]. "The attraction of a humanoid is that you can put it here and it stays here. It will pick all day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week," says Chelsea Sharp, the plant's finance director [1]. Other companies, like Colorado-based AMP, use AI and air jets to sort materials, claiming their robots are eight to ten times more efficient than humans [1]. California-based Glacier uses mounted robotic arms, with its AI models learning from more than a billion items [1]. "As our models learn from more than a billion items, the AI gets better and better," says co-founder Rebecca Hu-Thrams [1]. Chelsea Sharp says the plan is to upskill existing staff to maintain and oversee the robots, moving them away from the dirty, noisy, and dangerous environment [1].