There is an abundance of trash in the world.
Roughly 2.24 billion tonnes of solid waste was created in 2020, the World Bank states. It predicts an increase of 73% to 3.88 billion tonnes by the year 2050.
Since the 1950s when plastic production began on a large scale, research from the Universities of Georgia and California has determined that over 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic waste has been created until 2015.
Mikela Druckman will not be taken aback by those stats. She has done a lot of research into the subject of trashes and discards, being the initiator of Greyparrot, a British start-up that has designed an artificial intelligence system to review garbage disposal and recycle centers.
She emphasizes that the amount of trash arriving at a facility in a single day is vast, with no time for respite - it is a never ending cycle.
Greyparrot has positioned cameras over the conveyer belts of approximately 50 waste and recycling sites across Europe, using AI software to monitor and evaluate the material passing over them in real-time.
In the past year, AI technology has advanced significantly and its image processing capabilities have become very advanced. Despite this, Ms Druckman noted that teaching the system to identify litter was still difficult.
Once a product such as a Coke bottle goes into the bin, it becomes crumpled, crushed and dirty, making the problem much more complicated from an AI perspective.
Greyparrot has developed systems that monitor 32 billion waste items annually and have created a vast digital waste map. This data can assist waste managers in increasing their efficiency, and also be distributed to a broader audience.
Ms Druckman states that this is giving regulators a much clearer idea of the materials being used, which ones are causing issues, and it is having an effect on the design of the packaging.
We tend to speak of climate change and waste management as though they are distinct items, yet in reality they are linked. This is because the majority of our use of resources is due to not being successfully recovered.
If stricter regulations were to be enforced with regards to our consumption habits and the way we design packaging, it would have a sizable impact on the entire value chain, as well as the way we employ resources.
She anticipates that major corporations and other manufacturers will begin to employ information sourced from GreyParrot and similar organizations to create more sustainable goods.
Troy Swope leads a business focused on creating higher quality packaging. Footprint has collaborated with supermarkets and Gillette to switch the manufacture of its plastic razor trays to ones made from plant fibre.
Mr Swope asserts in a blogpost on Footprint's website that a "myth of recycling" is deceiving consumers.
He called attention to a plastic salad container labeled "ready to recycle" and inquired as to its precise meaning.
Mr Swope noted that it is now less probable than ever that single-use plastics which have been abandoned will end up anywhere apart from a landfill. The only method of getting away from the plastic disaster is ceasing to depend upon it from the beginning.
Ms Druckman highlights that greenwashing is an issue. "A great number of assertions have been made in relation to eco or green wrapping, yet they are not always supported by solid evidence, and this can be very perplexing for buyers," she states.
To assist retailers in confirming that used plastic bottles are actually being recycled and the amounts that are being recycled, a UK-based company called Polytag covers them with UV tags that cannot be seen by the naked eye.
Once the bottles have reached their designated recycling facilities, the tags are scanned by a Polytag machine. As this happens, the number of bottles is immediately transmitted to Polytag's cloud-based app, which their customers can access in real time.
Rosa Knox-Bradley, the project manager at Polytag, points out that brands now have access to data about how many bottles are being recycled, which is something they never had before.
So far the company has done business with UK retailers Co-Op and Ocado.
In order to incentivise people to recycle and increase rates of recycling, a deposit return scheme initiated by the UK government and the administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland is set to be launched in 2025.
The presence of "reverse vending machines" at shops and other public places enables people to receive payment when they deposit their used plastic bottles and metal drinks cans - up to 20p per item.
The continued quest for an eco-friendly solution to dispose of waste is a difficult endeavor that is regularly complicated by the introduction of new trends.
This series, titled New Tech Economy, investigates the effects that technological progress will have on the burgeoning economic climate.
The newest craze of e-cigarettes, or vapes, is leading to an increase in electronic waste that is difficult to recycle.
Ray Parmenter, head of policy and technical at the Chartered Institute of Waste Management, expressed how big of a problem it is and how it is only increasing in size.
He states that the primary problem is with throwaway, one-time use vapes, which he describes as "completely contrary to the circular economy".
Vapes used for disposal are constructed out of various materials, such as plastics, metals, and a lithium battery. Some of them may even contain LED lights or microprocessors.
Results from Material Focus, a group which advocates for the recycling of electronics, indicated that in the United Kingdom, 1.3 million vapes are discarded every week. This amounts to 10 tons of lithium, which is enough to fuel 1,200 car batteries, being thrown away annually.
Mr Parmenter explains that obtaining critical raw materials such as lithium from deep mines is not simple, so once they have been extracted it is important to make full use of them.
Ms Druckman emphasizes the need to alter our perspective in regard to vapes.
It is not profitable to have single-use vapes; there is no justification for their existence. Instead of looking into how to recycle them, the better question to ask is: Why do we have single-use vapes in the first place?
Industry and policy-makers have an important part to play in making products more recyclable or reusable, however, consumers also have a part to play. The most significant transformation they can make is to "reduce consumption".
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