The word is spreading that the field of plastic recycling has collapsed. Only 9% of plastic is being recycled. Asian countries have stopped accepting western recycling, and that’s just was well because they were mostly dumping it in landfills. Fortunately, a solution is being developed using robots and computer vision. The technology is either here or pretty close, and several teams are working on it, so before long if there are the right incentives, people will make robots very good at sorting trash and recycling. In fact, this permits single-stream recycling, which many cities already do because they find that consumers suck at sorting their recycling, and so it is necessary to sort it again after they put it in the bin.
To help these AIs along, laws could be made that no consumer product or packaging can be sold unless a set of tagged photographs of the items from many angles and lightings, in many states of crush and filth, is inserted into a training database for the robots, along with the data on what to do with the item. This is a minor cost on manufacturers and vendors once it starts going. CAD files could add to it. UPC codes would also be recorded if they remain on the item.
Of course, we don’t want people encouraged to throw things away rather than recycle. This could be used to give the household credit for providing good, clean, unsorted plastics, glass and metals. The more they recycle, the more credit they get on their garbage service, and if they opt-in, good stars on a gamification website. They could also get information on things they are putting in that don’t belong, and become more aware of what products have packaging that can’t be recycled, and feel a bit more guilt next time they buy that product.