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Environment / Recycling facility

WM: Automating recycling sorting

Company
WM
Country
United States
Adoption stage
In operation
Source published
Date basis
The date the source was published. It can differ from the date adoption started.
How the source was checked
Checked a source excerpt through a search tool

The work problem

WM set a goal of increasing recovered recyclable material by 60 percent over 2021 levels by 2030. Existing sorting equipment limited both the types and the volume of material that could be recovered. Hard-to-recycle material such as flexible plastics is a typical example. Areas with no recycling service at all also remained.

Technology and data

WM is spending more than $1.4 billion on building new recycling facilities and upgrading existing ones. Artificial intelligence and automation go into these facilities together. The company said it is adding optical sorters and intelligent sorting equipment at recycling sites. The purpose is to increase the volume of material recovered and raise efficiency. At one facility it is piloting the separation of clothing by fibre composition, colour and the presence of metal using robots and near-infrared technology.

Results

WM said it has completed 27 of the 39 recycling facilities planned. In 2024 it completed ten automation upgrade projects and added 545,000 tons of annual recycling processing capacity. All 39 recycling growth projects are scheduled for completion by the end of 2026.

Limits and open questions

Figures isolating the increase in recovery or the fall in contamination attributable to artificial intelligence and automation alone are not in WM's material. The increase in capacity by facility also mixes the effects of new equipment and replacement.

Sources

Compiled from public sources. These are not results from ATF Works customers.

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