WM (formerly Waste Management) hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, March 6, to mark its Orange County facility’s $20 million upgrade. roughly 35% of the material processed at the facility originates from Irvine, making the city one of the major municipalities contributing to the facility’s operations.
The facility upgrades include nine optical sorting machines, which use sensors and artificial intelligence to identify and separate different materials on the recycling line. The system helps improve recovery rates for materials such as cardboard, paper, plastics, and glass. Formerly much of the work was done through human hands, which sort through 50 items per minute. The modernized operation uses advanced technology equipped with automation and AI to sort through 1,000 items per minute.
As WM continues to add more technology to its operations, area Recycling Director Stephen Moreno said that where possible staff formerly used for manual sorting will be moved to other roles in the organization. These roles might include equipment operators, maintenance technicians, and other administrative positions…