Leave it to Auto-Trash to Automatically Sort Your Garbage

If you have trouble sorting your garbage and recyclables, a new project from TechCrunch’s Disrupt Hackathon may be the perfect solution. Equipped with a Raspberry Pi and a camera, the aptly named Auto-Trash uses image recognition to distinguish your discarded items and then rotate its top to drop ’em into their respective bin.

According to TechCrunch, Auto-Trash’s image recognition system is powered by the team’s own custom software built on top of Google’s TensorFlow.

While industrial technologies exist for this task, the Auto-Trash team envisions this as a low-cost, consumer product. Additionally, multiple cans would be connected to the TensorFlow neural network and each individual can would be learning from the contents put into all cans. Over time the network of cans would become smarter and smarter and get better at sorting.

Currently, the gadget is configured to only segregate compostable and recyclable contents, but its creators hope to expand this functionality in the near future.

You can read more here, and see the prototype in action below!