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A friend of mine worked at this company, and the bane of his existence was one popular Arizona green tea bottle. The plastic and glass versions looked identica

A friend of mine worked at this company, and the bane of his existence was one popular Arizona green tea bottle. The plastic and glass versions looked identical[1], so no way to sort it visually. Great for brand identity, bad downstream. [1] https://www.plasticstoday.com/packaging/arizona-beverages-swaps-out-glass-bottles-pet https://www.plasticstoday.com/packaging/arizona-beverages-sw...

darkerside 4y ago
I wonder if echolocation could have done the trick
- swayvil 4y ago
  Seriously. Give that robot some more senses. Echoic, magnetic, infra-ultra, spectrographic analytic, nuclear magnetic resonant... the whole schmeer. It's certainly easier than making them smarter.
- KMag 4y ago
  I think the normal thing is to drop trash down a tower with a forced air cross-current. Glass gets diverted less than plastic by the cross-current. You can also use various densities of liquid, to catch different densities of plastic floating vs. sinking if you've already crushed things up to avoid air bubbles. However, then you need to later separate the liquid from the shredded garbage.
epicureanideal 4y ago
I suppose a law could be passed that versions of a product with different materials would need to be visually distinct? Or manufacturers could voluntarily do it.
divbzero 4y ago
Did your friend eventually find a workable solution? I wonder if they could reach out to the beverage company and ask for a distinguishing feature that’s easy to recognize for computer vision but wouldn’t affect the brand’s look-and-feel for human vision. Perhaps a machine readable version of a resin identification code [1] encoded as a pattern visible from any angle? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code
Ekaros 4y ago
Seems like we need similar legislation as tobacco packaging. Dedicate 40-60% of product to machine readable identification of what type of recycling it is.
- myself248 4y ago
  Or just go Aldi's route and put enormous barcodes covering entire sides of the package. Scan rate goes up _immensely_ when you don't have to give even half a hoot about orientation. Before we tried to use AI and cameras for this task, bottle-return machines have just used barcode scanners. They're fast, deadly accurate, and take zero intelligence to program. The achilles' heel is certain jerkface brands that use white-ink-on-shiny-aluminum, which violates the contrast requirements of many scanners. For those, image recognition would be a valuable second method.
  - Akronymus 4y ago
    Aldi seems to have figured out packaging the best out of ANY store I have been to. And the empty boxes for your groceries are always useful if you forget to grab a basket beforehand.
TheDudeMan 4y ago
The article shows the solution to this being a glass breaker stage.

darkerside 4y ago

I wonder if echolocation could have done the trick

swayvil 4y ago
Seriously. Give that robot some more senses. Echoic, magnetic, infra-ultra, spectrographic analytic, nuclear magnetic resonant... the whole schmeer. It's certainly easier than making them smarter.
KMag 4y ago
I think the normal thing is to drop trash down a tower with a forced air cross-current. Glass gets diverted less than plastic by the cross-current. You can also use various densities of liquid, to catch different densities of plastic floating vs. sinking if you've already crushed things up to avoid air bubbles. However, then you need to later separate the liquid from the shredded garbage.

epicureanideal 4y ago

I suppose a law could be passed that versions of a product with different materials would need to be visually distinct? Or manufacturers could voluntarily do it.

divbzero 4y ago

Did your friend eventually find a workable solution? I wonder if they could reach out to the beverage company and ask for a distinguishing feature that’s easy to recognize for computer vision but wouldn’t affect the brand’s look-and-feel for human vision. Perhaps a machine readable version of a resin identification code [1] encoded as a pattern visible from any angle? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code

Ekaros 4y ago

Seems like we need similar legislation as tobacco packaging. Dedicate 40-60% of product to machine readable identification of what type of recycling it is.

myself248 4y ago
Or just go Aldi's route and put enormous barcodes covering entire sides of the package. Scan rate goes up _immensely_ when you don't have to give even half a hoot about orientation. Before we tried to use AI and cameras for this task, bottle-return machines have just used barcode scanners. They're fast, deadly accurate, and take zero intelligence to program. The achilles' heel is certain jerkface brands that use white-ink-on-shiny-aluminum, which violates the contrast requirements of many scanners. For those, image recognition would be a valuable second method.
- Akronymus 4y ago
  Aldi seems to have figured out packaging the best out of ANY store I have been to. And the empty boxes for your groceries are always useful if you forget to grab a basket beforehand.

TheDudeMan 4y ago

The article shows the solution to this being a glass breaker stage.