Garbage in, targets out!

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Machine vision for recycling

[Recycle icon]

Reduce, reuse, recycle!

An example of how our image processing and tracking technology developed for the rigours of the military environment can be rapidly applied to civil applications with great effect is in the area of machine vision. Specifically, in environmental processing and waste management.

Our detection and tracking software is being used in a novel machine vision system that is being developed to improve household waste recycling. The figures for the UK are motivation enough to seek smarter, cheaper ways to recycle:

  • 77% of waste goes to landfill sites at present - only 12% is recycled.
  • The amount of household waste produced in the UK is projected to double by 2020.
  • The UK has one of the lowest levels of household waste recycling in Europe.

[Manual sorting]

Manual sorting is expensive

By developing a reliable, automated means of sorting waste into well defined categories (e.g. type of plastic, metallic composition) more items can be recycled and a greater throughput of objects achieved per processing plant.

The machine vision system processes waste items that are placed on a moving conveyor belt and groups them into alike materials in real-time without the need for any manual intervention. Waterfall Solutions provides the detection and tracking software that ensures the identification of all individual items for sorting and highly accurate positional and property details required for successful automatic sorting.