Toxic waste is becoming a huge problem that AI can solve

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Four hundred million tons of toxic waste are produced each year.

Imagine for a moment, that's 70 Great Pyramids of Giza combined. It's not something most of us consider when ordering a white chocolate mocha in a plastic cup at Starbucks, but waste management is a huge issue for an entire industry tasked with preventing environmental damage.

If this problem is not addressed, the result is things like increased methane emissions, which account for 25% of climate change. Beyond climate change, proper management of waste management directly affects the safety of the general public at an immediate level.

Household Hazardous Waste (HHW), such as flammable or reactive products like paints, cleaners, oils, batteries and other chemicals, pose a serious risk if not disposed of properly. Despite this, between 20 and 80% of all household waste generated is dumped in open spaces, bodies of water or sewers. What's left is cremated or buried, UN says

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There simply aren't enough humans to effectively separate recyclables from regular trash, or toxic trash from other trash. If you can catch the drift here, that's where artificial intelligence (AI) can help — and not at the expense of anyone's job.

The Powers of Image Annotation

AI enables a process known as image annotation, through which a machine can efficiently group together parts of an image belonging to the same object class. Put simply, this allows waste management facilities to take advantage of machines to identify all recyclable materials in process. They can then separate it for reuse. The system can identify all toxic waste more efficiently than a human.

Annotators use small lines connected by vertices to trace the shape of objects in digital images. Additionally, annotated video helps AI algorithms understand motion and label each frame of video training footage. Correctly identifying the shape of streets and roads is useful for computer vision models trying to determine if waste has been dumped incorrectly. Track annotation adds lines to images and frames to show the structure of linear objects like roads and train tracks.

AI-powered camera systems can also help cities fight illegal dumping. Using object recognition capabilities, street cameras can identify litter clogging sidewalks and roads and alert city departments to send workers to clean it up. Street-level cameras may also be able to capture license plates used by dumpers, allowing fines to be issued and acting as a deterrent.

The fact is, government regulation is not seriously considered if the problem it seeks to solve seems unachievable. And until AI emerged to help solve the problem of waste management, regulation on a global scale was simply insufficient.

The Challenge of Regulating RDD Disposal

The Human Hazardous Waste (HHW) management framework in the United States was established by the Resource Conservatio in 1976...