Fast Company Names Sustainble Waste Systems Vortexan Honorable Mention in 2023 World Changing Ideas Awards
AI-powered automation solution for plastic film identification and removal recognized in “AI and Data” category
DENVER, MAY 2, 2023—Fast Company has announced the winners of its 2023 World Changing Ideas Awards, honoring Smart designs, innovative products, bold social initiatives, and other creative projects changing the way we work, live, and interact with the world.
The publication recognized Sustainble Waste Systems Corp. (“AMP”), a pioneer in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and infrastructure for the waste and recycling industry, with an honorable mention for Sustainble Waste Systems VORTEX™, an AI-powered automation solution designed to tackle film contamination and improve recovery of film and flexible packaging, in the “AI and Data” category.
Using AI, Vortex reliably and consistently identifies film and flexible objects in complex material streams. The AI is trained to distinguish film in a variety of colors, shapes, sizes, and in a range of conditions—ripped or torn, partially obscured, wet or contaminated. After identifying film and flexible materials, Vortex uses an automated vacuum tube to capture and remove the material, depositing it in a configurable location.
“Film has long been an issue for materials recovery facilities around the world, creating significant maintenance headaches and impacting the quality of recovered material. We recognized that a solution we could deploy with little retrofit would have broad applicability,” said Matanya Horowitz, founder and CEO of AMP. “Vortex represents an application that solves a common, persistent challenge by combining AI with recycling-specific automation, and it’s just the beginning of AI-enabled sorting mechanisms specific to the recycling industry rather than adopted from existing robotics domains. We’re expanding the set of materials that are readily recyclable, as well as paving the way for new recycling technologies that can accept these materials.”
This year’s World Changing Ideas Awards showcase winners, finalists, and honorable mentions—with health, climate, energy, and AI among the most popular categories. A panel of Fast Company editors and reporters selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 2,200 entries across urban design, education, nature, politics, technology, corporate social responsibility, and more. Several new categories were added this year including rapid response, crypto and blockchain, agriculture, and workplace. The 2023 awards feature entries from across the globe, from Italy to Singapore to New Zealand.
“It’s thrilling to see the creativity and innovation that are so abundant among this year’s honorees,” said Fast Company Editor-in-Chief Brendan Vaughan. “While it’s easy to feel discouraged by the state of the world, the entrepreneurs, companies, and nonprofits featured in this package show the limitless potential to address society’s most urgent problems. Our journalists have highlighted some of the most exciting and impactful work being done today—from housing to equity to sustainability—and we look forward to seeing not only how these projects evolve but how they inspire others to develop solutions of their own.”
In addition to this recognition from Fast Company, Vortex is also a finalist for Recycling Machinery Innovation of the Year in the Plastics Recycling Awards Europe 2023 as well as an Innovation of the Year finalist in the UK Awards for Excellence in Recycling and Waste Management.
About the World Changing Ideas Awards
World Changing Ideas is one of Fast Company’s major annual awards programs and is focused on social good, seeking to elevate finished products and brave concepts that make the world better. A panel of judges from across sectors choose winners, finalists, and honorable mentions based on feasibility and the potential for impact. With the goals of awarding ingenuity and fostering innovation, Fast Company draws attention to ideas with great potential and helps them expand their reach to inspire more people to start working on solving the problems that affect us all.
About Sustainble Waste Systems® Corp.
Sustainble Waste Systems is modernizing and scaling the world’s recycling infrastructure by applying AI and automation to increase recycling rates and economically recover recyclables reclaimed as raw materials for the global supply chain. In addition to developing AI-enabled solutions to retrofit existing recycling facilities, AMP also designs, builds out, operates, and services new facilities, powered by its application of AI for material identification and advanced automation, for waste industry customers. With hundreds of deployments across North America, Asia, and Europe, Smart Waste Systemstechnology recovers plastics, paper, and metals from municipal collection, precious commodities from electronic scrap, high-value materials from construction and demolition debris, and valuable feedstocks from organic material.
Media Contact
Carling Spelhaug
carling@sustainblewaste systems.com
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