Hazardous waste identified and sorted using simple barcodes

[SZonian]

Every year, people in the US produce about half a million tonnes of household hazardous waste. Much of that is unused paint, insecticides, bleach, cleaning products and other dangerous fluids.

Because many processing facilities can’t quickly identify the chemicals in this household waste, the items are often simply lumped together and incinerated – which is expensive. Now two entrepreneurs have exploited standard product barcodes to help identify exactly what people have discarded and thus what chemicals they contain. This allows certain articles to be diverted for recycling.

Their start-up, Smarter Sorting, has installed a barcode scanning system at four waste disposal sites in the US used by the public – in Austin, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah; Portland, Oregon; and Mesa County, Colorado.

One challenge is that barcodes are not necessarily unique to a product – they can get reused on different items over time. The system has historical data on this and it also weighs each scanned item, using the combination to identify it with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Even if a bottle of insecticide, for example, is only half full, the weight may still help differentiate it from, say, a packet of pencils that bore the same barcode 20 years ago.

[excerpted]
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2139900-hazardous-waste-identified-and-sorted-using-simple-barcodes/

A good idea IMHO...

[truth_seeker]

Our "for profit" waste collection system, uses 3 containers; namely vegetation, trash/garbage, and recyclables.

Recyclables then get hand sorted supposedly, between paper, glass, aluminum, plastic etc.

Paint, electronics are supposed to be taken to the sorting site separately. "Hazardous wastes," IOW

In addition, there are privately owned/operated recycling sites, where you can get money for aluminum, glass, plastic, and also drop off electronics.

[Suppressed]

One challenge is that barcodes are not necessarily unique to a product – they can get reused on different items over time.

I hadn't realized this.

I'll be following this technology.  Thanks, @SZonian!

[GtHawk]

Our "for profit" waste collection system, uses 3 containers; namely vegetation, trash/garbage, and recyclables.

Recyclables then get hand sorted supposedly, between paper, glass, aluminum, plastic etc.

Paint, electronics are supposed to be taken to the sorting site separately. "Hazardous wastes," IOW

In addition, there are privately owned/operated recycling sites, where you can get money for aluminum, glass, plastic, and also drop off electronics.

Where I lived the hand sorting of recyclables was done by Asians and Hispanics between the hours of 2am and 4 am, so I know there wasn't that much profit left by the time the city contractor picked it up. Unamazingly the city was not interested in trying to stop these entrepreneurs.

As far as the HAZMAT recycling sites , be sure that you are up to date on all the relevant transportation codes because they will rip you a new if you bring in one pint over the five gallon limit allowed to be transported by unlicensed carriers.

[SZonian]

I hadn't realized this.

I'll be following this technology.  Thanks, @SZonian!