Title of Article: Robot Could Reduce Waste Going to Landfill by 50%
Author: Jaymi Heimbuch
Publication Date: 4/20/11
Link: www.treehugger.com/files/2011/04/trash-sorting-robot-could-reduce-waste-going-to-landfill-by-50.php?campaign=th_rss
Summary: I think that this is a great invention for our world and could be very beneficial to our community. Many times items that can be recycled are thrown out and this new robot may be the key to preserving those recyclabes from going to landfills. This robot would use metal detection, weight measurement, and 3-D scanning, just to name a few of the ways the robot would be able to detect these recycables. If this robot is succesful it could both help recycle more items and lower the trash amount and at the same time can help the health and safety of workers who have to sort through hazardous trash such as construction trash. All in all, this robot was a great invention and will shortly play a major role in our world.
Opinion: I am fascinated by how advanced our technology is that we are able to have a robot sort our own trash for us. However, it is a shame that this robot needed to be invented and we in the first place should be aware of what to recycle and what not to so we would not be sending recyclabes to landfills. Despite this, this robot is a great opportunity for us to conserve more space to store our trash and to reuse more products. The way that this connects with my personal life is in a bad way. Usually, I have the terrible habit of throwing out my water bottles and gatorade bottles into the trash instead of recycling them. I hope to improve and grow out of this habbit. Hopefully, if my trash was on a conveyor belt, the robot would be able to pick out my recyclabes and reuse them. Overall, this robot was a great idea and will benefit many people in the near future.
3 Questions:
1. Do you think that this robot is a good idea? Why or why not?
2. Should we use this robot to replace workers who sort trash?
3. Would you use this robot at your home for your own personal trash if you could?
Here is the link to the graphic I forgot to put it in the post:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.forbes.com/alexknapp/2011/04/12/zenrobotics-develops-a-garbage-sorting-robot/
Opinion: I think this is helpful. It will help people like Ben that forget about what they are throwing out. It will also benefit our environment too. With the appropriate trash going to the appropriate cause, we can eliminate or decrease most hazardous end results to the harmful effects of waste. I know I always recycle my plastics and paper but sometimes I will have something to recycle, but there is not recycle bin, like in my second period class. Also, in my neighborhood, they offered a program to get points for recycling. Now everything goes into a regular trash bin, the large kind, and it get sorted then, so this topic really relates to me.
ReplyDeleteGraphic+Extension: This article shows the kind of recycling I have. The picture on the left of the trash can with the yellow lid is kind of like the recycling one I was talking about.
Answers:
1) Yes, it will help many things out, but most of all, the environment.
2) Yes and no. It will improve the health of those people if they didn’t work, but it would also destroy some jobs.
3) Probably not because it would get expensive.
Opinion: I think that this robot is a great invention. There are a lot of people who do not recylce and this robot could pick up all the recycables that they throw out every day. Like Ben said this could open up more space in landfills for more trash to be stored. This robot will increase the number of cans, glass and plastic recycled and will be a big improvement to make more products out of recycables. At lunch we have a big blue recycling bin. I always buy a gadorade bottle at lunch and I make sure to put it in the recycling bin when I am done with it. However, there is a lot of recycables that I see people throw in the trash at lunch. This robot will fix there mistakes and increase the amount of recycables that are recycled.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to Questions:
1)Yes, I think this robot is a good idea because it will increase the amount of recycables that are being recycled.
2)No I do not think we should use this robot to replace workers who sort trash because not all technology is perfect. Workers could pick up any recycables that the robot happens to miss.
3)Yes I would use this robot because sometimes I am not sure if certain products can be recycled so this robot would help decide what is recycled and what is not.
Opinion:
ReplyDeleteI think this very interesting. I just hope it works well enough. Like Ben said, most people have a bad habit of throwing out recyclable products. And sometimes it is not their fault. Sometimes there is no way of knowing what is recyclable and what is not, so we just throw it away. With the help of this robot, we wouldn't have to worry about that. There is one downside if this is fully successful: it may make people lazy. If someone can just say "oh, I don't need to recycle this. The robot will do it for me." and then they just throw it out, it won't get people to realize the importance of recycling.
Answers to Questions:
1. Yes and no because of the reasons mentioned above.
2. Yes because it can be a dangerous job.
3. Yes because sometimes it is hard to tell which items are recyclable or not and you could be wrong.
Questions I ask:
1. How efficient is it?
2. How expensive is it?
3. How does it work?
Graphic:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Non-selective_domestic_waste_sorting_machine.JPG&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Non-selective_domestic_waste_sorting_machine.JPG&usg=__063xOh2Ui04z96GLXWa_kG8k1jM=&h=1944&w=2344&sz=335&hl=en&start=0&sig2=TEfQ0y3xj-qxypkvNL2EsQ&zoom=1&tbnid=Tbq7171oi3bBcM:&tbnh=167&tbnw=201&ei=genKTaT7A8Lm0gGKw8CZCQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtrash%2Bsorting%2Brobot%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1045%26bih%3D484%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=145&vpy=97&dur=183&hovh=204&hovw=247&tx=133&ty=83&page=1&ndsp=8&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0
This is a picture of an actual trash sorter.
Opinion:
ReplyDeleteI think that this is an amazing move forward in todays society. With landfills filling up more and more it would be great to have a robot that can reduce the amount of waste going into a landfill. I watched the movie Walle and this robot reminds me of the robot in walle. It would be really cool if we could have our trash scanned by this robot. It has me a little concerned because we do not have a lot of experience with robots, but if we keep researching them I think that this could be very good for our environment. I hope that in the future all landfills will have robots like this one.
Answers:
1)I think that there are advantages and disadvantages of this robot. One of the advantages is that it hopefully works successfully to help our environment, but we do not know the risks.
2)I do think that this robot should replace workers who sort trash because even if the robots do the work the old trash sorters could be there to double check the robots or fix them if they break.
3)At my home we do a good job of seperating recycleables and trash, but I do think that this robot could be helpful in my household.
My Questions:
1)How much does it cost for this?
2)When do you think this robot will be working at all landfills?
3)Does it really work?
Connection:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/italy-trash-robot-wall-e-garbage.php
This website is about a trash hugger like wall-e.