The recycling industry loses 40 per cent of its workers every year. A humanoid robot trained by VR headsets is the replacement plan.
TL;DR
A family-run east London recycling firm is training a Chinese-built humanoid robot to sort waste on its conveyor belts, where staff turnover runs at 40 per cent and the fatality rate is eight times the national average. The robot is not yet operational, but the industry’s labour crisis is making automation inevitable.
The recycling industry has a labour problem that no amount of recruitment can solve. Staff turnover at waste sorting facilities runs at 40 per cent annually. The fatality rate is eight times the national average across all industries. Work-related injury and ill-health runs 45 per cent higher than other sectors. The work involves standing beside a conveyor belt moving at speed, pulling shoes, concrete blocks, VHS cassettes, and occasionally firearms out of a stream of mixed waste, in conditions so dusty and loud that the humans doing it rarely last long enough to get good at it....
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