(NewsNation)— Reduce, reuse, recycle — the three Rs kids know all too well from educational campaigns at school.
Now, a relatively new educational campaign has emerged in East Lansing, Michigan. Recycling collection trucks use artificial intelligence-powered cameras to detect improperly recycled items in recycling containers and send a warning to residences. Some are concerned about privacy.
The city of East Lansing partners with Prairie Robotics, a Canadian technology company that develops AI to sort landfill waste. A recycling truck has a camera that video monitors the items residents recycle and collects household-by-household data.
The AI can detect if there are any improperly recycled items and logs the information. A personalized educational postcard is generated and sent to the residence with information on improper recycling practices.
At the Bloomberg 2024 CityLab in Mexico City last week, East Lansing’s environmental sustainability and resiliency manager presented the innovative campaign to city leaders and urban experts during a session on AI.
“People are trying to do the right thing, but education is tough to get your hands on when all the solutions and rules for recycling are hyperlocal,” said Cliff Walls at the event, a global summit bringing city leaders together to discover urban policy solutions.
The 24-month pilot program concluded last year, and the results are in: “Preliminary results show that residents who receive postcards significantly increase participation in recycling while decreasing contamination,” a city analysis found.
“Households that received a certain type of educational postcard to coach them about recyclable materials reduced contamination by 23% and set out their carts 45% more often compared to a control group,” an Ohio State University statistical analysis of the project found.
The intent of the first-of-its-kind citywide initiative was to compare traditional versus high-tech approaches to reducing waste. The pilot program was an automated technology version of its “Feet on the Street” program in which humans manually inspect curbside bins and leave educational warnings when they find nonrecyclable materials.
But with any new technology comes privacy concerns.
“Trash is really personal,” said Sarah Powazek to Bloomberg.
Powazek is the program director of public interest cybersecurity at the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity at the University of California, Berkeley. “Trash has a lot of sensitive information that not only could lead to identity theft [through items] such as credit cards and financial records that people might throw out, but also about how people live their lives.”
East Lansing, which has earned national recognition for its efforts, is exploring long-term AI technology use on its recycling trucks.
Walls addressed privacy concerns at the Bloomberg summit, noting the city ensured transparency with residents about the initiative and vetted AI companies to make sure they are not selling information to third parties, Bloomberg reported.
“(Cities) should really assess whether or not improvements to recycling are worth potentially revealing very sensitive, very personal information about residents,” Powazek said.