The recycling industry is seeing a boom in demand for paper products at the same time that the coronavirus pandemic has made it critical for workers to maintain social distance. Now some cities and municipalities are debating whether recycling should be considered an essential service amid the outbreak.
This presents an opportunity for robotics to help fill in the gaps left — literally — between human workers, Matanya Horowitz, founder AMP Robotics, told Cheddar.
"It gives the facilities different options for what they want to automate and what they want to keep manual," Horowitz said. "What a lot of facilities are doing right now is they are using robots to basically space out their workers."
Recycling plants are not easily adapted to meet social distancing guidelines, due to the highly manual nature of sorting and cleaning recycled materials.
"They have to worry a lot about worker safety in these facilities," Horowitz said. "The way a lot of these facilities are designed, a lot of the workers work pretty closely together, so social distancing isn't always easy to maintain."
AMP Robotics is making the case that robots can fill in the space between human workers who are tasked with weeding out trash from recycling materials. The robots use artificial intelligence to determine which products can be recycled and which should head to the landfill.
"There is a huge demand for all this recycled cardboard and paper and newspaper in the industry, essentially to supply things like toilet paper and new boxes due to everyone staying home and ordering all these things online," Horowitz said.
"Anywhere else that there may be an elevated risk to the sorters, we could potentially deploy a robot," he added.
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Starbucks’ decision to restrict its restrooms to paying customers has flushed out a wider problem: a patchwork of restroom use policies that varies by state and city. Starbucks announced last week a new code of conduct that says people need to make a purchase if they want to hang out or use the restroom. The coffee chain's policy change for bathroom privileges has left Americans confused and divided over who gets to go and when. The American Restroom Association, a public toilet advocacy group, was among the critics. Rules about restroom access in restaurants vary by state, city and county. The National Retail Federation says private businesses have a right to limit restroom use.
President Donald Trump is talking up a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence by a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank. The new entity, Stargate, will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House. The initial investment is expected to be $100 billion and could reach five times that sum. While Trump has seized on similar announcements to show that his presidency is boosting the economy, there were already expectations of a massive buildout of data centers and electricity plants needed for the development of AI.
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