Greater Kelowna area residents may soon learn that putting something that is not recyclable into their recycling bin will be more difficult.
The Regional District of the Central Okanagan announced Monday that its curbside recycling program will soon test artificial intelligence technology to better detect when the wrong material lands in a recycling cart, and homeowners will learn about it in real-time.
The AI pilot program, a partnership between varying levels of local governments and Prairie Robotics, aims to reduce the region’s overall recycling contamination levels, which in the past have led to costly surcharges for local municipalities.
“The innovative technology installed on recycling trucks, uses a combination of truck-mounted cameras, AI-based visual recognition and GPS to identify and track unaccepted items,” the regional district said in a press release.
“The AI is trained to recognize problematic items, including plastic bags, garbage, yard waste and Styrofoam, all materials that do not belong in the recycling cart. By scanning the material collected, it finds items that are not supposed to be in the recycling cart and reports them for further action.”
If the system detects a contaminant, the regional district said a photo is taken from inside the truck’s hopper, and the materials that don’t belong are highlighted.
A postcard with the image will be sent to the household with information about what can or cannot go in the recycling cart. If the associated household also has the Recycle Coach app, they will also be notified on their mobile device. Everything except for the detected recycling contaminant will be blurred out in the image.
“Most of our residents put a lot of effort into sorting their recycling correctly,” Travis Kendel, acting director of Engineering Services with the RDCO said.
“With this pilot, we can help by providing curbside recyclers with customized and real-time feedback. This region-wide initiative is intended to improve the quality of recycling in our curbside recycling carts, help avoid financial penalties and direct our staff to areas where education is needed most.”
Residents can expect to start seeing postcards from the Regional District and Prairie Robotics in their mailboxes by late November.
For more information on the pilot program, visit rdco.com, and for info on what to recycle, download the Recycle Coach app, or visit rdco.com/recycle.
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