Recycling and waste reduction are nothing without people; folks wanting to make a personal change, people pushing for more solutions and, of course, the people actually collecting and processing our trash and recycling.
But technology in waste reduction has come a long way, to the point that practical, viable solutions now often resemble robots from a science fiction movies. Check out a selection of the more mind-blowing advancements.
Homepage Image: Olka Design
1. Robotic Street-Sweeper
Scarab, a design concept by Olga Kalugina, is a tiny automated robot that has been designed to pick up trash in large, urban areas. Similar to how the Roomba vacumming robot cleans rooms, an operational Scarab could keep streets and public places free of litter.
As reported by Tuvie, Scarab’s two web cameras and sensors would estimate the size of the area being cleaned and detect various refuse, which would then be picked up with the robot’s ‘arms,’ diagonal sweeper collectors.
The robot would then sort rubbish internally based on size, then properly dispose of trash and recyclables in nearby recepticles.
The Scarab robot is still in design stages, but a prototype could make both techies and city-dwellers very happy.
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