AMP: AI-Powered Sortation for Waste and Recycling

“We accept polypropylene in our bins, so we should be recovering it—both from an environmental and an economic standpoint.”

“The robot met our expectations almost immediately and showed constant improvement”

“Grant funding is important because it shows a real commitment from the industry to partnering with the community on recycling programs. It’s particularly helpful in jump-starting a program for materials that might not have traditionally been sorted as their own stream because the funding covers the cost of some of the infrastructure and start-up—removing a significant barrier to entry for a MRF.”

“If we compare this facility to older plants with manual work, the difference is clear,”

“It’s clear that the more automated facilities are, the better the yields and quality of the final product,”

“We tested the robot prior to implementation and were pleased with its ability to recognize and recover materials that optical sorters cannot. It’s been fast and effective, and a great tool for quality control.”

“AMP is the leading brand in robotics, and that was an important factor for us in choosing a solution to improve our sorting productivity and efficiency.”

““By implementing these new technologies, the DPW continues to be on track to achieve our goal of reducing landfill waste. At the DPW, we are continuously innovating and implementing practices that increase our efficiency, improve safety, reduce landfill waste, and provide an overall better environment for Kent County residents.””

““ It’s how you stand by your product, how quickly you can address issues that arise—that’s the big issue, and AMP has delivered. ””

““ AMP's staff has been very responsive about every single thing we've ever asked. We've always got solid responses from them. ””

“"We don't want to own or operate an incinerator or processing facility. So going into a relationship like this was great for us because we didn't have the responsibility of designing, operating, and managing the facility," said Bagley.”

““ It's not like any other plant I've ever been in. Their processes were far better than any other process that we looked at. ””

“We’ve been very pleased with our partnership with AMP, and plan on continuing to work together as we identify future needs for AI-powered sorting.”

“The net result is we’re getting more PET bottle picks—about twice as many—from the material stream. We want to recover all we can, and with AMP’s technology, we are.”

“AMP’s team has been extremely responsive, available anytime we requested support. The team has gone out of its way to follow up and check in without being prompted.”

“With AMP’s technology, we can pick additional material we weren’t before because of the faster speeds and the ability of AMP’s AI to identify different materials in the stream.”

“As a MRF operator, this is one of the best investments you can make. There’s not another piece of equipment we could’ve purchased with the same impact. If I were starting a new facility, I wouldn’t do it without AI and robotics.”

“Our bottom line has improved drastically. It’s been an improvement in efficiency and you see a complete difference in the grade of the material, which helps you understand the function of the robots versus not having them.”

“What I get most excited about over the long term is by making recycling this fundamentally better business, you not only create an incentive to expand it in the U.S. or Europe, but in the developing world, and you can really make a huge impact.”

“It’s all part of our recycling promise to the community: if you recycle properly, it’s going to come through our system and be sorted efficiently and wind back up in the products you rely on. We listen to consumers about what they want to recycle beyond #1 and #2 plastic bottles, like cartons and yogurt cups, and identify buyers and end markets for these recycled commodities.”

“Bringing people into our facility to see the robots is a huge opportunity. We consider ourselves an incubator and leader in public sector advancements, so we jump at any chance to share AMP’s technology with plastics recyclers in our region, like Petoskey Plastics or East Jordan Plastics. If we—a small, dual-stream facility in northern Michigan—can leverage public and private sector investment to benefit from cutting-edge technology, others can as well.”

“It’s amazing how well and efficiently the surge hopper works. The more we run it, the less time we’re actually spending with it. It fills up, our people walk away, and we let the robots do the work. Whether it be minutes or seconds, we empty it sooner every week. There are more picks per minute, and it seems like it’s only getting faster.”

“We would not have gotten through the last year without robots. We didn’t have to rely on any temporary workers during COVID, and we’ve become more confident in the staffing we need with the help of automation,”

“We knew AMP was the leader in the robot world, and we found robots to be more cost-effective than optical sorters,”

“We consider ourselves an incubator and leader in public sector advancements, so we jump at any chance to share AMP’s technology with plastics recyclers in our region.”