HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS INVENT SMART GARBAGE CANS

A pair of Vancouver high school students have invented smart garbage cans that tell you what kind of trash you should be throwing in them. Amy Bach and Sunny Huynh noticed that their fellow students throw all of their plates and leftover food into one garbage can, which ends up in a landfill. To help students improve improve their waste sorting habits, they came up with a device that uses sensors and odor detectors and cameras to help determine in which can the waste should go. The girls used 5,000 images to teach their AI-based invention to recognize different types of trash. If the wrong trash goes in the wrong bin – a paper carton goes into the food waste, or an orange peel goes into the paper container – the trash can recognizes that and beeps, or sends an alert to the trasher’s phone. The girls plan to continue to work on their invention in hopes of scaling it up and eventually introducing it to all 89 elementary and 18 secondary schools in the Vancouver school district.
* This is the greatest invention ever, said everyone who can’t tell an apple core from a paper plate.
* Not bad, but it would be cheaper to hire someone for the kids to hand their garbage to, and that person throws it out.
* What you really need to make this work is an enforcer robot that makes you reach in and pull out that creamed corn you just tossed into the plastic recyclables. You’ll never do it a second time.
* AI is transforming the world in remarkable and impressive ways. Then there’s these garbage cans.
* Now do laundry! Socks and undies, silk and wool, lights and darks.