The Longmont-based company CleanRobotics has announced a new partnership, new contracts and updated features for its green waste sorting system.
The business has teamed up with the Chicago-based ARO, which maintains the operations and management of robotics, general automated systems and drones.
“We have formed a partnership with them to support the TrashBot deployments,” said Rachel Whitener, spokesperson for CleanRobotics. “They offer total robotic life-cycle management, so that’s really exciting.”
The team will help to ensure the success of TrashBot, a smart recycling and waste bin that sorts people’s trash automatically, she explained.
“TrashBot is best suited for high-traffic facilities where there’s a lot of waste disposal and a lot of contamination, and recycling programs aren’t really effective,” Whitener said. “TrashBot sorts with 95% accuracy, so it’s about 300% more accurate than humans. It sorts into potentially four waste streams — so there would be recycle, landfill, compost and then a fourth stream of the facility’s choosing.”
CleanRobotics received a $400,000 grant in October 2022 from the Environmental Protection Agency, which the company is using to give facilities, agencies, governments and other customers incentive to buy more than one TrashBot, said Zak Wehman, associate director of business development with the company.
"We have created an early adopter incentive program for large customer purchases — one TrashBot for every unit purchase, available for customers with a starting budget of $60,000,” Wehman explained. “Funding will also be used to develop additional TrashBot features and functionality, which will drive further impact and help us achieve our goals for effective recycling programs and waste recovery."
The new functionality includes more interactive content for people who throw their waste away, Whitener said. Currently, the system gives simple instructions and sorts the waste in a few seconds. The new features will engage more with the user and acknowledge where the waste has been deposited, providing the user with feedback on contamination, she explained.
The company is also tracking data to help airports, stadiums, hospitals and other facilities make changes to their waste management and even develop policies, Whitener said.
“The data is useful for empowering the facility to make better decisions about its waste, or about its packaging, for example,” she explained. “TrashBot can not only deliver data on the pounds of recyclables, for example, they’ve collected, but also how that translates to the amount of carbon that’s emitted.”
As the EPA provides more grants to state and local governments for infrastructure technology and reducing contamination of recyclables, the company expects more TrashBot deployments, Whitener said.
“For 2023, we have four TrashBot deployments planned – I can’t tell you where they’re going yet, but we have at least half a dozen contracts closing for Q1 (across the U.S.),” she explained. “We’re really excited about what we can learn from the data that TrashBot’s technology provides.”
