Who are the big robot suppliers to the waste management industry?
If we accept that when it comes to the waste management industry, robots are mostly and quite heavily involved in the process of sorting waste, then the main players in this area are:
ZenRobotics
Sadako Technologies
AMP Robotics
Waste Robotics
Alpine Waste & Recycling
Resource Recycling
Bollegraaf
HOMAG
TOMRA
Pellenc ST
RES Polyflow
Optisort
Robots developed by these companies are designed to replace traditional sorting methods. They operate mainly by a robot arm firstly identifying the type of waste (via machine vision and sensors), selecting it and then placing it in the required location. In general, it's reckoned that a two-armed robot can make 4,000 ‘choices’ an hour. Robots can also separate anywhere between 3000 to 6000 materials in an hour. Robots doing this type of work can achieve an accuracy of around 98%.
