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.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
Southwest Airlines will soon require plus-size travelers to pay for an extra seat in advance if they can't fit within the armrests of one seat. This change is part of several updates the airline is making. The new rule starts on Jan. 27, the same day Southwest begins assigning seats. Currently, plus-size passengers can pay for an extra seat in advance and later get a refund, or request a free extra seat at the airport. Under the new policy, refunds are still possible but not guaranteed. Southwest said in a statement it is updating policies to prepare for assigned seating next year.
Cracker Barrel is sticking with its new logo. For now. But the chain is also apologizing to fans who were angered when the change was announced last week.
Elon Musk on Monday targeted Apple and OpenAI in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the iPhone maker and the ChatGPT maker are teaming up to thwart competition in artificial intelligence.
