Why the US is Turning to Robots to Solve Our Recycling Problem

For decades, the United States and other wealthy countries have been dependent on China to buy and process almost half of the world’s plastic waste. Now, stricter recycling standards in China mean its cheaper for some U.S. cities to simply send recyclables to the dump rather than pay a higher fee to process them. That’s why a number of researchers and tech companies are working on robots to make U.S. recycling more efficient.