Highlighting the plastics industry’s notorious track record in recycling, London-based Recycleye says it has raised $17 million in new funding led by “deep tech” investor DCVC.
The startup claims that its recycling-picking robot can identify materials at “unparalleled 60 frames per second” and sort them more accurately than humans can. Ultimately, the startup says its technology will reduce the “cost of sorting materials.” TechCrunch reached out to the company for information on potential cost savings.
Palo Alto-based DCVC says its mission is to “reduce costs while doubling the benefits of capitalism for all.” Climate His Tech is one of its focuses and one of his lenses through which to view the environmental impact of capitalism. In the case of plastics, the oil industry has long touted the benefits of recycling plastics, but has questioned its economic viability and sought to sell more virgin plastics.
All stages of plastic production disrupt the climate and the natural world, “from the extraction and transportation of fossil fuels, the primary raw materials of plastic, to its refining and manufacturing, to waste management, and the plastic entering the environment.” I wrote about international environmental law in 2019.
Plastic pollution, a major contributor to climate change, is also on the rise. This is partly due to a lack of “waste management and recycling,” the intergovernmental organization OECD said last year.The group concluded that someone needed to “Creating an independent and well-functioning market for recycled plastics.”
The problem is sorting, melting and ultimately reusing most plastics. Recycle only a few times— Much more expensive than buying virgin plastic. M.Most of the time we don’t do that. Most plastics (around 91% according to the OECD) are not recycled, Single-use plastic production is at an all-time high.
Recycleye is one of many companies looking to repair some of this broken system with AI, focusing on speeding up scans, identifying and sorting used materials. Recycleye, citing an OECD report, said: “Changing this wasteful and environmentally damaging dynamic in a range of materials presents a huge business opportunity.”
According to Recycleye, their machine learning and scanning technology is “twice as fast as industry standards, meaning each item is seen an average of 30 times as it passes through the conveyor belt, ensuring accurate identification before picking.” It doubles the chances of it happening,” he said. We reached out to the company for more information on these numbers.
Recycleye’s new Series A funding round was joined by several other investors, including London-based early-stage investor Playfair Capital.
