Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Trash Talk: Startup's AI-Driven Detection System Primed to Take a Bite Out of Global Waste

21/09/2021

Of the 8.3 billion tons of virgin plastic waste created each year, despite decades of efforts to reduce the amount that ends up in landfills, only about 9 percent gets recycled.

London-based computer vision startup Recycleye looks to give those recycling numbers a big boost with its AI-driven system for identifying waste materials.

By automating and speeding the movement of materials through sorting systems, and identifying them with more precision, Recycleye says it can significantly increase capacity for recycling companies while upping the overall recovery rate.

Pretty lofty promises from a two-year-old company that started in the most unglamorous of ways.

We went out and collected trash from bins, took it back to my garage, and started building our first proof-of-concept, said Peter Hedley, chief technology officer at Recycleye, which is a member of the NVIDIA Inception accelerator program for AI startups.

One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure Hedley and Dewulf, co-founders of Recycleye. Hedley and company co-founder and CEO Victor Dewulf started discussing the possibilities of their technology during their masters' work at the Imperial College of London, where they worked on applying computer vision to waste streams.

Dewulf ultimately wrote a paper on the topic, got interest from academia and industry, and then left his job as an analyst at Goldman Sachs to start working on a Ph.D. so he could refine his idea. The next thing Hedley knew, Dewulf had him dumpster diving and developing the idea into a commercial product.

Buoyed by acceptance into Microsoft's AI accelerator program, they found themselves on the receiving end of an £800,000 (about $1.1 million) seed investment, followed by another £400,000 in grants in 2020.

By the end of 2020, the startup had already proven itself with the top waste-management firms in the U.K. Last April, they partnered with energy leader TotalEnergies and recycling pioneer Valorplast on the OMNI project, one of seven winning projects selected by nonprofit French sustainability company Citeo.

An AI on Closing the Recycling Loop To date, effectively recognizing and separating items that have contained food from other items has not been possible. However, a crucial step in improving recycling rates is to optimize the quality of recycled materials that are passed on to plastic manufacturers.

Recycleye's partnership with Valorplast and TotalEnergies focuses on the application of AI to identify food-grade and nonfood-grade plastic packaging with the goal of increasing the circular recycling of these products. It could even help in the development of new applications, such as improved food packaging.

Recycleye has also partnered with universities to create WasteNet, an open-source database that is now the world's largest waste dataset, with more than 2.5 million training images.

Recycleye is an NVIDIA Metropolis partner, providing offerings that integrate the full Metropolis stack for video analytics inference. The Recycleye team uses the NVIDIA Jetson platform and dug into accelerated deep learning tools such as pretrained models, the NVIDIA TAO Toolkit and the NVIDIA DeepStream SDK.

With the NVIDIA tools and huge training dataset behind it, Recycleye has slashed the time it takes to deploy its model from an unworkable two months down to just two hours, while achieving accuracies exceeding human vision in identifying items.

The company's devices run on the network's edge, doing all computations onsite, provided there's sufficient internet connectivity. Models are trained in the cloud, on a GPU-enabled instance of Microsoft Azure, and then deployed to Recycleye's devices at client sites.

Algorithms are automatically updated on client devices during software updates. The cloud system also processes data logs and provides the client with dashboard summaries of that data.

A Recycleye intelligent picking system. Coming: Global Expansion and More Robots Recycleye also develops robots powered by Recycleye Vision, jointly with FANUC, one of the world's largest robotics manufacturers. Having already installed Recycleye Vision and Recycleye Robotics in the U.K. and France earlier this year, Hedley expects more waste companies will follow suit to automate their manual sorting with robotics.

But Recycleye has much bigger aspirations now that it has a scalable system that can be deployed globally, and Hedley said that the more deployments the company does, the better its technology will get.

When we have a device at both the end and the front of a line, we can see what happens if the quantity of material increases, but the quality decreases, said Hedley. We can start optimizing machinery and configuration, and start having machines making decisions.
LINK: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/09/21/recycleye-ai-waste-recycling-...
See more stories from nvidia

North America Stories

05/06/2026

Fahad Haider Joins NESN as VP, Operations and Engineering

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

05/06/2026

GatesAir Opens New Brazil Office to Back DTV+ Rollout

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

05/06/2026

Supreme Court Upholds FCC's Authority to Levy Fines

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

05/06/2026

Montclair State University Will Run NJ PBS

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

05/06/2026

Merkhet's Sam Matheny Urges Congress to Expedite BPS Deployment

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

05/06/2026

Sinclair Launches NextGen TV Campaign in Columbus, Ohio

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

05/06/2026

NAB Releases New Keep the Game On' Spot

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

05/06/2026

NCTC, ACAC Going to Disney World for Independent Show

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

05/06/2026

Nielsen Announces New Integrations for Improved Measurement

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

05/06/2026

Frequency Launches In-Scene Advertising to Accelerate Str...

Frequency, the engine powering many of the world's leading streaming television channels, today announced the launch of In-Scene Advertising, a new monetiza...

05/06/2026

Berklee Study Reveals Video Has Become Essential to Music Careers

Berklee Study Reveals Video Has Become Essential to Music Careers Survey findings show social platforms have become the primary source of music for video cont...

04/06/2026

Sony's New PTZ Cameras Deliver 4K 60p; New STARVIS Sensor Meets Low-Light Demands

Sony Electronics is introducing the SRG-AS10, a 4K 60p-compatible PTZ auto-frami...

04/06/2026

SVG Students To Watch: Alex Albert, Texas A&M University

This recent grad from Spring, TX, led creative-video output for the Aggies' men's basketball team last season and has been producing video and creating ...

04/06/2026

USGA Brings AI Recaps, 3D Range Tracking, and Predictive Shot Tracing to U.S. Womens Open

For the first time at a women's golf major, every player in the field will r...

04/06/2026

Panasonic PT-RQ45 Projectors Power Lille Video Mapping Festival Opera House Installation

Three Panasonic PT-RQ45 40,000-lumen 3-Chip DLP projectors made their first live...

04/06/2026

Bitmovin and Akamai Support NRJ Groups Deployment of Akamai Adaptive Media Player 2

Bitmovin and Akamai have announced a collaboration with NRJ Group, a French mult...

04/06/2026

Telestream to Exhibit at InfoComm 2026 with Live Production and Media Workflow Demonstrations

Telestream will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth N7952), demonstrating media work...

04/06/2026

Sony Announces RIALTO 65 Image Sensor Block for VENICE 2, Targeting 2027 Release

Sony has announced the development of RIALTO 65, a 65mm format image sensor block for the VENICE 2 digital cinema camera, targeting release in the first half of...

04/06/2026

KOKUSAI DENKI Electric America to Exhibit 4K and Remote Production Solutions at InfoComm 2026

KOKUSAI DENKI Electric America will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth N8025, June ...

04/06/2026

Bell Media to Carry All 104 FIFA World Cup 2026 Matches Across TSN, RDS, and Streaming Platforms

Bell Media's TSN and RDS are the exclusive Canadian broadcasters of FIFA Wor...

04/06/2026

MASV Case Study: How MASV Reduced Miami HEAT's Road Game Video Transfer Times by 85%

The Challenge: Receiving Heavy Media Files From Road Games Quickly and ReliablyT...

04/06/2026

MASV Outlines Seven-Step Sports Analytics Workflow, Highlights File Transfer as Key Bottleneck

MASV, a managed file transfer platform used in broadcast and live sports product...

04/06/2026

NESN Appoints Fahad Haider as Vice President of Operations and Engineering

NESN has announced the appointment of Fahad Haider as Vice President of Operations and Engineering. Haider returns to NESN, where he previously served as Vice P...

04/06/2026

Sports Broadcaster, Executive, and Author David J. Halberstam Dies

David J. Halberstam, who spent almost 50 years in sports as a broadcaster and an executive, died June 2 after a years-long battle with brain cancer. Over his l...

04/06/2026

Grass Valleys Ben Dolinky on Offering Teachable Technology to College Students Across the Country

Although collegiate production programs are tasked with delivering high-quality ...

04/06/2026

Prime Video Caps First NBA Season With Sports Emmy Win, Carries In-House Production Into WNBA Campaign

California studio, two production trucks, global distribution system are combine...

04/06/2026

TikTok and Sundance Collab Launch Micro-Series Storytelling Program

New global program empowers and supports storytellers through scriptwriting course and access to industry experts TikTok and Sundance Institute today announce...

04/06/2026

TiVo: TV Viewing Hits Post-Pandemic Peak

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/06/2026

Bitmovin and Akamai Support NRJ Group to Deploy Next Gene...

Bitmovin, a leading provider of video streaming infrastructure, and Akamai, the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business onli...

04/06/2026

American Underground Opens at American Tobacco Campus, Completing a 16-Year Full-Circle Story

American Underground (AU), the Startup Hub of the South and a community of mor...

04/06/2026

Nielsen: Thunder Rolls as NBA's Most-Watched Team

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/06/2026

AI Drives Lenovo's 2026 FIFA World Cup Broadcast Plans

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/06/2026

ATSC Conference Looks Beyond Traditional TV for 3.0 Success

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/06/2026

ATSC Awards Highest Technical Honor to Julia Kenyon

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/06/2026

Lumine Group to Acquire Synamedias Video Network Business

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/06/2026

BFOA Launches 5th Annual Giving Day

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/06/2026

Hemisphere Media Group Brings WAPA+ Fast Channel to Prime Video

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/06/2026

APTS to Hold June 4 'Protect My Public Media Day'

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/06/2026

NVIDIA and Microsoft Reinvent Windows PCs for the Age of Personal AI

NVIDIA and Microsoft Reinvent Windows PCs for the Age of Personal AI Brie Clayton June 3, 2026 0 Comments RTX Spark - a 1-Petaflop Superchip, the Full...

04/06/2026

Inside the Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man Grade

Inside the Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man Grade Brie Clayton June 3, 2026 0 Comments Simone Grattarola discusses shaping the look in DaVinci Resolve...

04/06/2026

Cine Gear Expo Announces 2026 Awards of Excellence Recipients

Cine Gear Expo Announces 2026 Awards of Excellence Recipients Brie Clayton June 3, 2026 0 Comments Ed Lachman ASC, Caleb Deschanel ASC, and M. David M...

04/06/2026

St. Vincents Live with Orchestra Tour to Feature Berklee Alum Ruby Plume

St. Vincents Live with Orchestra Tour to Feature Berklee Alum Ruby Plume Berklee alumni St. Vincent and Ruby Plume will appear on the same bill across seven d...

04/06/2026

Seoul Purpose: How NVIDIA and South Korea Are Building the Future of AI

Home to cutting-edge sovereign AI infrastructure and robotics innovators, as well as one of the world's most passionate gaming communities, South Korea is o...

04/06/2026

'All the Truth in My Lies' Coming to Netflix on August 28

Back to All News All the Truth in My Lies Coming to Netflix on August 28 Entertainment 04 June 2026 GlobalSpain Link copied to clipboard Download the imag...

04/06/2026

Larry Tanz, VP of Content, EMEA, Delivers a Keynote Speech at the Enders TMT Leaders Live 2026 Conference

Back to All News Larry Tanz, VP of Content, EMEA, Delivers a Keynote Speech at ...

04/06/2026

Turn Your Living Room into a Stadium With the New FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition' Game, Exclusively on Netflix Games June 11

Back to All News Turn Your Living Room into a Stadium With the New FIFA World ...

04/06/2026

Keeping conversations real on LinkedIn

Keeping conversations real on LinkedIn Published on Jun 4, 2026 Categories: Product News LinkedIn Corporate Communications Share LinkedIn Facebook ...

04/06/2026

Forecast: Fun Ahead - 18 Games Join in June to Stream on GeForce NOW

June's forecast with GeForce NOW: 100% chance of gaming. GeForce NOW is lining up new adventures for the month, from big-name blockbusters to quirky indies...

03/06/2026

SES Launches Multi-Orbit Satellite Inflight Connectivity on Viva Airlines

SES and Viva, Mexico's ultra low-cost airline, have launched multi-orbit satellite inflight connectivity on Viva's Airbus aircraft. A total of 60 A320s ...