UMass Pilot Tests Alumni-created Innovative Trash and Recycling Sorting Robot
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This story was first published by the UMass News Office.
rStream, a robotics-based recycling startup founded by two UMass Amherst alumni, returned to campus to pilot its newest recycling innovation: a mobile trailer that uses AI to separate trash and recycling. This technology is poised to clean up trash-contaminated recycling streams and rescue recyclables from trash destined for a landfill.
“We’ve all experienced that feeling of staring at the waste bin, not knowing where to put the thing,” says Ian Goodine, co-founder and CEO of rStream. “It doesn’t matter how good your signs are: It’s extremely complicated. There are a lot of rules and they’re different based on where you are. There’s no way we’re ever going to be able to educate everybody perfectly because it’s so complicated.”
Multiply that by 32,000 students, 4,500 staff members and 1,800 faculty members (not to mention visitors or event attendees) — all coming from different locations with different recycling rules — and this ‘which bin does it go in’ confusion can turn even the most well-intentioned systems into contaminated recycling and missed opportunities to sustainably recover materials.
rStream envisions a system where computers are responsible for tracking all of the recycling nuances. Their newest innovation is a mobile trailer that uses computer vision and AI to discern between trash and recyclables as waste passes through a conveyor belt, then automatically diverts items into the correct lane. This pilot trailer can sort a ton of waste in an hour.
By testing this technology on campus, UMass can determine the feasibility of incorporating it into its long term sustainability plans.
“Waste can take many forms at loading docks and transfer stations, so working with UMass to get us into those spaces is key to modeling what improvements technology can make,” says Ethan Walko, co-founder and CTO of rStream. “Right off the bat, we want to tackle cross-contamination to boost the sustainability of their outputs and reduce costs for recycling processing and landfilling.”
Kathy Wicks, director of UMass Dining Sustainability, envisions taking this technology a step further. “By having this system that recognizes materials, it provides greater opportunity to reduce contamination and for us to target specific items that can be separated and utilized in a circular system,” she says. “This system enables us to provide detailed information to our waste stream contractor, which in turn will allow them to more easily identify markets for that waste and this moves us closer to being able to have plastic material from campus that can come back around as clothes or other consumer goods featured in the UMass store.”
She adds that the university can also use the information about what is currently in the UMass waste stream to make procurement adjustments.
Chancellor Javier Reyes had the opportunity to see the rStream trailer at the Office of Waste Management. “Goodine and Walko’s ingenuity is a powerful example of the high-impact research and entrepreneurialism that defines UMass Amherst,” he said. “It is particularly gratifying to see that the innovation and discovery that they explored as students is now helping to address a critical campus need while advancing environmental sustainability.”
Compared to other tech companies tackling this issue with warehouse-sized operations, rStream is taking a smaller-scale approach. “By not restricting our design focus to industrial-scale recycling centers, we have an opportunity to help solve all sorts of losses in the recovery of recyclables that automation typically can’t reach,” says Goodine.
Also, other companies have zeroed in on just cleaning trash out of recycling, while rStream is committed to picking recyclables out of the trash as well. “It’s the worst kept secret,” he adds, “if your goal is sustainable impact, you need to sort the trash, too.”
Goodine and Walko formed rStream out of their senior design project. They received their undergraduate degrees in 2021 and master’s in 2022, both in mechanical engineering. While at UMass, they further refined their work through the I-Corps @ UMass Amherst program, a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) program to help innovators translate their work from research labs to marketable startups.
This past winter, the NSF announced a change in the I-Corps model. To celebrate the transition, I-Corps hosted a showcase, including both Goodine and Walko on a panel about their experience with I-Corps and beyond.
“We are incredibly proud of Ian and Ethan,” says Sundar Krishnamurty, Ronnie & Eugene M. Isenberg Distinguished Professor in Engineering and faculty lead of the I-Corps program at UMass. “Starting an innovation company during academic years wasn’t just a dream to them — it became a reality. Their journey proves that, with hard work and the right support, innovation and entrepreneurship truly know no boundaries.”
Since graduating, rStream has raised $3 million in grant funding and both Goodine and Walko have been named Activate Fellows. They have received federal and state recognition from the Department of Energy, NSF, Mass Clean Energy Center and as part of the MassRobotics Accelerator’s inaugural cohort, where they presented their work to Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll.
Through this support, the technology they brought to campus has an artificial intelligence created with an extensive data set of recycled materials — and the various crumpled forms they come in. Bringing their invention to campus enables them to further train this robotic brain to handle even edge cases like dirty peanut butter jars or greasy pizza boxes. And the hardware has to be robust and resilient enough to handle the dirtiest dumpster. “Even within the known variety [of trash], you get all sorts of things you’re not prepared for,” Goodine says.