Artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology have become major buzz words across waste and recycling operations—particularly when it comes to eliminating contaminants and processing clean materials for end markets.

Throughout the show, San Francisco-based Compology highlighted its dumpster monitoring software that provides remote visibility into dumpster fullness, contents, location and service. Compology also showcased its camera-based contamination recognition, measurement and scoring technology, Contamination Score (CScore); its Text-To-Order product that automates service prompts and submissions for roll-off; and its software API and integration capabilities.

The company’s CEO Jason Gates also sat on a panel titled “Artificial Intelligence & The War on Contamination,” which dove into the application of AI technologies that are helping stop contamination upstream as well as educating generators on proper recycling with high-touch, targeted coaching.

During a session titled “Robots & Recycling: A Dynamic Duo,” Bill Keegan of Dem-Con; Matanya Horowitz of AMP Robotics; Michael Gross of Zanker Recycling; and Will Hancock of Plexus Recycling Technologies discussed how far robotics have come in the recycling world in the past two years.

Machine learning, or AI, distinguishes materials’ features while avoiding the need for expensive spectral infrared sensors. AI can pull data from recycling facilities across the country, enabling information to be shared from one facility to another. The robot itself can pull cartons, containers, cans and metals. And it can clean polyethylene terephthalate (PET) on the line.

Between increasingly tightened commodities quality standards, worsening labor shortages and high logistics costs, the question is what do we do? Keegan turned to automation to reduce the need for manual labor and improve efficiency of operations. From an operator's perspective, he said, robotics has a smaller footprint than optical sorting and is easy to add to an existing system. It also has enabled eliminating physically demanding, manual sorting jobs where there is potential for injury.

TOMRA SORTING RECYLING unveiled information about its new cloud-based program that connects customers’ optical sorting equipment. TOMRA Insight provides near real-time data, collected in the cloud, that is retrieved on desktops and mobile devices. By providing digital metrics like throughput, material size and distribution, acceptance and rejection rates and more, TOMRA Insight gives equipment companies the operating data necessary to optimize sorting performance and reduce machine downtime. In addition, TOMRA Sorting specialists also shared the latest information on the company’s SHARP EYE technology that helps recycling operations increase recovery of recyclable paper and sort single-layer PET trays from PET bottles.

End of Waste Foundation Inc. (EOW) announced its first partnership with Momentum Recycling, a glass recycling plant located in Colorado and Utah. Momentum is implementing End of Waste’s traceability software based on blockchain technology. The EOW Blockchain Waste Traceability Software can track glass waste quantities from bin to new life.

Robotics and AI technology have proven useful for the material recovery and separation of construction and demolition (C&D) waste and debris. Here’s a look at some of the technology C&D operations can leverage for their unique needs.

AMP Robotics Corp. launched a new AI-guided dual-robot system for recyclers, the AMP Cortex dual-robot system (DRS), focused on material recovery in municipal solid waste, electronic waste (e-waste) and C&D. The AMP Cortex DRS expands on its existing product line of high-speed recycling robotics guided by the AMP Neuron AI platform and uses two high-performance robots that rapidly sort, pick and place materials at a speed of 160 pieces per minute. AMP Neuron uses computer vision and machine learning to recognize different colors, textures, shapes, sizes and patterns to identify material characteristics. Then, it directs the robots to pick and place the targeted material.

The design of the two robots opens new material applications, namely the ability to process difficult material streams of post-consumer fiber. From sheets of paper to cardboard, sorting fiber is a major challenge for recycling lines, often becoming a contaminant for other recycled commodities. By solving this challenge, AMP said its technology improves the purity of materials to be recycled, while also increasing the recycling rates of post-consumer recycled fiber overall.

Additionally, during the “Robots & Recycling: A Dynamic Duo” session, Will Hancock of Plexus Recycling Technologies said the company developed a demolition processing operation and recently built a state-of-the-art plant that processes roughly 65 tons an hour. Plexus, which concentrates on the C&D market, has a robotics waste sorting system. But there are preliminary steps before its Zen robot does its job, including shredding materials to get them to a manageable size and a ballistic separator that eliminates 2D materials before the robot receives what’s remaining.

Rock, brick, wood and metals bounce backward and on to a separate line. They are bunker fed to the robots that sort the material. The AI system realizes what it picked wrong and reclassifies. Robots can be controlled from devices and operators can change applications.

WasteExpo 2019 saw no shortage of advancements in fleet technologies—including a new battery-electric truck from Mack Trucks and developments in fleet route optimization software, maintenance solutions for improved uptime and much more. Here’s a closer look at some of the innovations that were rolled out this year.

Mack Trucks unveiled its Mack LR battery electric vehicle (BEV), which combines the refuse design of the Mack LR model with a fully electric Mack drivetrain. The demonstration model will begin real-world testing in 2020 for the City of New York Department of Sanitation.

Autocar Trucks launched the Autocar DC-64R, a new conventional truck for severe-duty refuse applications. The truck features an upgraded electric system and the Autocar Always Up display with one-touch diagnostics, which informs the operator or technician what fault has occurred and shows them how to fix it.

Global Routing Solutions launched what it calls the “latest in commercial routing programs”—C.H.R.I.S Commercial Route Recorder and Player. The tool allows haulers to create their own routes to replay for drivers who do not know the route or for training a new driver on a route. It eliminates the use of paper route maps or guidance from another driver or loader. It also allows managers to remotely view drivers and receive notifications when drivers are off route. The program aims to cut down on distracted driving, missed customers and reduce stress on supervisors and overall staff.

FleetMind Solutions Inc. unveiled its latest connected technologies for waste fleet management, including its smart truck technology that includes functionality for onboard computing, route management, fleet inventory management and third-party software integration. Additional features include: a street sweeping application with back office reporting support, graffiti removal app with back office reporting support, integration with third-party route optimization and an integrated route management and billing solution.

Freightliner highlighted the new Freightliner EconicSD, equipped with next-level safety technology and a collision mitigation system. The truck, which integrates safety and technology into its design inside and out, is the first Freightliner vocational truck to feature the Detroit Assurance suite of safety systems. The truck comes standard with active brake assist, adaptive cruise control and lane-departure warning technologies. This truck also comes standard with Side Guard Assist, a feature on refuse routes, which uses two radar sensors to monitor the proximity of the truck’s passenger side for objects such as traffic signs, bicyclists, vehicles, etc. Additionally, the EconicSD features a rain/light sensor, which automatically activates headlights and wipers. The vehicle also features an optional Blind Spot View, consisting of multiple video cameras, making the driver more visually aware of their immediate surroundings and operating environment. It’s spec’d with the Detroit DD8 mid-range engine with Detroit Connect Virtual Technician remote diagnostic service.

FleetMind Solutions Inc. and ITA Dynamics integrated their two products to provide North American waste management and recycling companies with an integrated “all-in-one” solution for billing, route management and service verification. Using FleetMind’s FleetLink Route System and ITA Dynamics’ Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ENWIS products together, solid waste fleets can create customers, assign subscriptions, dispatch routes and handle on-demand stops while maintaining a single version of events. They also can leverage FleetLink Reports’ service verification capabilities, which provide time-stamped, location-based photographic evidence of service delivery, to provide proof from within Microsoft Dynamics ENWIS to resolve customer service queries.

Pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) programs are frequently referred to as the “Uber” model of waste collection, often resulting in reducing the amount of waste going to an incinerator or landfill, improving flexibility and efficiency in payment of waste removal for customers and capturing data for analyzing participation and asset management.

This year, a panel of experts shared case studies on PAYT waste removal programs and the technologies being utilized, what challenges are faced, what benefits exist and what the end results are during the session “RFID, PAYT—Are These the Future of Waste?” Robert Swain, information systems coordinator, and James Hurt, public works director, both for the Department of Public Works for the city of Grand Rapids, Mich., presented the challenges and successes they faced implementing a PAYT program in the city. The Grand Rapids PAYT program is set up with RFID-enabled waste and recycling carts, which are either purchased new or are existing and have been retrofitted. RFID readers have been added as onboard tablets to all vehicles, and data is transmitted wirelessly every couple of minutes.

Swain said the end results of an effective PAYT program include improved environmental sustainability, lowered workers compensation costs (through use of automated side-loading trucks) and reduced amount of waste as material that is burned or landfilled.

Across all sectors of the waste and recycling industry, technology providers are developing mobile apps to help haulers streamline operations. Check out a few of the apps that stood out this year.

Coretex showcased and demonstrated its upgraded Smart Waste solution. Coretex’s Smart Waste solution for the waste and recycling industry is an evolution of its Air-Trak waste services technology and now an integrated module within the Coretex 360 IoT platform. The product includes a new user interface and mobile applications for fleet dispatchers and drivers, city waste and recycling departments and commercial and residential end users. Features include electronic route sheets, work orders, proof of service verification, photo and video of exceptions, Department of Transportation-compliant driver vehicle inspection report, RFID tag data and electronic signature capture.

The Coretex 360 technology also provides in-cab performance data such as hours of service, engine diagnostics and fault codes and driver behavior for each truck, which is communicated to back office systems. The Coretex API integrates with third-party applications such as route planning, customer relationship management, billing and business intelligence tools.

PegEx showcased its PegEx Platform, a newly released cloud-based enterprise software, specifically designed for the waste management industry. The PegEx Platform provides custom tools that waste management companies could utilize to streamline and manage all areas of their business including customer management, sales pipeline, regulatory documents and operations workflow.

Eugene, Ore.-based Air-Weigh, a global electronic onboard scales provider, partnered with InSight Mobile Data to provide a fleet management solution for the refuse market, allowing users to view in-route bin weights through communication with InSight’s StreetEagle fleet management software. This integration brings the ability to access container content weight for individual commercial containers, pickup location and detailed customer information along with real-time tracking for routing, alerts, GPS location and more to any smart device or computer. The user can view, manage and export data from anywhere.

Drone technology is being deployed to help landfill owners and operators save time and money by reducing operations, maintenance expenses and environmental liability. Drones and remote monitoring and control (RMC) systems also play a major role when it comes to employee safety.

A session titled “Data, Drones & Case Studies: The Latest Trends in Landfill Management” addressed the latest tools and trends being used in landfill management. During a presentation on using RMC systems for various landfill systems including flares, landfill gas and leachate systems to identify, troubleshoot and solve real problems, David Hostetter, regional RMC manager at SCS Engineers, explained RMC is a way to integrate separate sensors and controls into one packaged control visualization, data monitoring alarm system that can be accessed remotely.

With RMCs, landfill operators can use IoT technology to combine separate controls and sensors into one package, allowing operators to collect data and use a radio system to send the data back and forth across the landfill. The systems can gather flare information, like flow rates, temperatures, statuses of the flares, etc. RMC systems also can monitor landfill gas-to-energy plants to monitor flow rate and how much energy is being produced and what the different pressures and temperatures are. They also can analyze depths, pressures and flow rates, statuses and alarms from leachate centers.

In addition, video cameras can be set up at landfill gates with alarms to alert operators when people are at the facility when they shouldn’t be. Once the data from the RMC is collected, operators can use the systems to remotely start and stop blowers, pull up video camera surveillance and do nearly anything via the control system that can be done locally.

During a presentation on how World Bank recently utilized drone technology to create a plan for upgrading a St. Maarten landfill, Melissa Russo, RMC national project coordinator for SCS Engineers and a licensed drone pilot, detailed the five major reasons why using a drone is an upgrade from everyday field practices:

1. Employee Safety—Survey work is done in rough terrain and in the elements, putting workers at risk of fatigue and injury. A drone surveyor eliminates several risks associated with ground surveyance —like heavy equipment and hazardous injuries. Drones allow for autonomous flight and upload the data to a secure cloud in a matter of hours.

2. Speed Survey and Data Deliverables—Land surveyance requires long hours and carrying heavy equipment from one point to another. Drone surveyance will take a single day, or a matter of hours, compared to weeks from ground surveyors.

3. Accuracy—Drones can cover 100 hours of landfill surveyance within a couple hours with better accuracy.

4. Cost Savings—Speed and efficiency equal cost savings for landfill owners and operators.

5. Capabilities—2D images, 3D rendering, infrared surveyance, infrastructure assessment, thermal infrared survey and more.

The St. Maarten Thermal Infrared Survey took place in August 2018 and was funded by World Bank. SCS was called out to complete a thermal infrared survey of the dumpsite and landfill, which had on numerous occasions gone up in flames. The site was hit by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, and the local main landfill was flooded with debris. Upon arrival, SCS found out that the main landfill was past its expiry and that trash was not sorted and covered properly, creating an environment for spontaneous combustion. Data captured from a drone quickly identified elevated surface temperatures and directed efforts to contain and extinguish landfill fires. Aside from thermal surveillance, landfill drones can provide methane leak detection, 3D topographic mapping, stockpile calculations, near infrared photography and infrastructure analysis.

A first for this year’s WasteExpo was the National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA) Safety Symposium, which delivered four information-packed hours of insight from some of the most known industry players. Much of the conversation centered on technology and the price haulers want to pay for safety products like cameras and automated technologies.

In a presentation on the future of safety, panelists discussed switching to more automated technologies. “We can’t do this [large scale] right away, but we’ve made progress to automate. Autonomous [trucks] will eventually be a great solution, but it’s not going to come soon,” said Jim Olson of Republic Services.

One suggestion was to have phones configured to become disabled when a vehicle is in motion. The role of predictive modeling was broached, too. Shawn Mandell of Waste Connections spoke of sharing clips of events as learning tools and encouraged those in the room to submit their lessons learned to NWRA.

Brian Haney of LeadPoint spoke on safety in materials recovery facilities. To reduce injuries, he suggested focusing on high-hazard areas, potentially dangerous processes like screen cleaning and paying attention to machine guarding. He pointed to bale storage areas among hazardous spaces needing protection. During screen cleaning, operators must be 100 percent in lockout/tagout and avoid failures.

Tom Jacques of Waste Management discussed regulations, including changes that are under consideration—particularly concerning the electronic logging device (ELD) mandate. Currently, if drivers are within a certain radius of their terminal and on duty less than 12 hours, they aren’t required to use an ELD. Industry members are trying to raise that threshold to 14 hours, also extending time they can go without a break. The thought of proponents of the extended hours is drivers would be less restricted if they got delayed. The amendment has been received by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. And the industry hopes to hear a decision before July. Jacques advised attendees to become actively involved in policy.

In a session called “What’s New in Waste-to-Energy,” Brian Gilhuly of RePower South, Mike Hart of Sierra Energy and Mike Moran of Dow Chemical Company discussed some of the most state-of-the art energy conversions out there. The panel also looked at how technology is addressing tough problems around some materials while generating clean, renewable energy and reducing landfilling.

Sierra Energy came up with a plan to make fuel out of garbage through a process called FastOx, a technology that has been demonstrated with tires, railroad ties, hazardous waste, C&D waste and medical waste. The company’s first commercial facility, which just launched in Monterey, Calif., is a 20-metric-ton-per-day gasifier that makes electricity, renewable diesel and renewable hydrogen.

RePower South’s plant in Berkeley County, S.C., recovers and processes recyclable municipal solid waste and turns what’s left into an engineered solid fuel that is sold as a substitute for coal. The process to make this fuel involves no chemicals and no mass burn or other thermal conversion. Recyclable materials are recovered with equipment like infrared optical sorters and robotics. Engineered fuel is made from what’s left, which is fed into a system that reduces it and eliminates moisture.

Dow Chemical believes landfills should be a last resort for plastic, so it created its Hefty EnergyBag. The bags are used at curbside to collect hard-to-recycle plastics for energy recovery through pyrolysis or for recycling.

Vecoplan LLC, a North Carolina-based manufacturer of waste recycling equipment, is designing and building the front-end material processing and preparation system for Brightmark Energy’s new plastics-to-fuel plant in Ashley, Ind. Vecoplan’s prep system will incorporate a variety of technologies engineered to deliver feedstock that meets specifications vital to the plant’s successful production of transportation fuel. Slated for completion in mid-2020, Brightmark’s Ashley facility will produce more than 18 million gallons of ultra-low-sulfur diesel and naphtha blend products and 6 million gallons of commercial-grade wax each year. Feedstock for Brightmark’s Ashley plant will include more than 100,000 tons of mixed plastic scrap a year.

CM Shredders, a manufacturer of advanced industrial shredders and recycling systems for electronic waste, machine turnings, tires and more, has opened its new test lab and research and design (R&D) demo facility in North America. Located at its headquarters in Sarasota, Fla., the new 4,000-square-foot R&D and demo facility features an array of both single shaft and dual shaft shredding systems from the company’s versatile product range.

The new test lab and R&D facility aims to help customers face the challenges of today’s production environments, whether through test shredding, applications, developing turnkey systems, training support or R&D work. As of December 2018, CM Shredders was acquired, joining the Bengal Machine family of size reduction companies, which includes its sister company, Schutte Hammermill, a New York-based manufacturer that has developed an extensive line of size reduction equipment, including hammer mills, lump breakers, crushers and shredders that provide a consistent and exact finished particle size.