Amazon-Backed Glacier Secures $16M to Expand AI-Powered Recycling Robot Fleet

Exclusive: Amazon-backed Glacier gets $16M to expand its robot recycling fleet | TechCrunch

The world has a trash problem. The amount of stuff we throw away is expected to nearly double, to 3.8 billion metric tons, by 2050. Reducing what we use would go a long way to addressing the issue, but let's face it, we're not very good at buying less either. That leaves recycling, which has its own problems. People routinely try to recycle dirty yogurt cups or toss plastic in the aluminum bin. It all makes recycling more expensive because, ultimately, someone has to manually pick out the unwanted stuff. In response, several companies have been building automated systems to sort recyclables, including Glacier, a six-year-old company that has developed inexpensive robotic arms controlled by computer vision to identify over 30 different types of materials. The startup has deployed its robots in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Phoenix, and now Seattle. As Glacier looks to expand its robot fleet to more municipalities, it recently raised a $16 million Series A, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The round was led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund with participation from AlleyCorp, Alumni Ventures, Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, Cox Exponential, Elysium, New Enterprise Associates, One Small Planet, Overlap Holdings, Overture, VSC Ventures, and Working Capital Fund. Materials recovery facilities -- or MRFs, as sorting facilities are called -- are getting squeezed on both ends, Rebecca Hu-Thrams, Glacier's co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch. Governments want more waste to be recycled, but MRFs are having a hard time finding enough people to staff the sorting line. Industry-wide, turnover is extremely high. A typical MRF will have to hire five times per year for a single sorting position. The job is so undesirable that one MRF operator told Hu-Thrams that, even though his wages were higher, he was concerned about losing workers to a new warehouse set to open nearby. "Would you rather stand at a conveyor belt and sort through people's trash, or would you rather be lifting boxes in an air-conditioned warehouse?" Hu-Thrams said. "That kind of underscores the dilemma that a lot of our customers are facing." Glacier offers its robots to customers as outright purchases or on a lease-to-own model. It encourages MRFs to make repairs they feel comfortable with, supplying them with training and spare parts. For those that would rather not, the startup offers maintenance packages. Glacier is also offering a data product, in which MRFs and other stakeholders like consumer products companies and government agencies can pay for access to insights about the waste stream. For an MRF, that might mean identifying where on a line it's losing valuable aluminum cans to the landfill. For a company or regulator, it might mean auditing the waste stream to determine whether packaging that's designed to be recycled is actually getting recycled. With enough robots, recycling rates should improve, if only because robots are faster and better at distinguishing between recyclables and trash. "Every time we send people to audit our AI systems, the people just do so much worse," said Areeb Malik, Glacier's CTO and second co-founder. "AI is getting really powerful, being able to distinguish beyond what people can even notice."

Recycling gets smarter: AI robots from Amazon-backed startup are sorting waste in Seattle

Entering Recology's recycling facility in South Seattle stuns your senses. The din from heavy machinery is continuous. While recycled goods are meant to be clean from food waste, your nose quickly knows that's not happening. Crisscrossing the massive space is a highway of conveyor belts snaking in and out of devices that grind, toss and sort the plastic from paper from glass from cans. Standing over the conveyor belts are dozens of workers scanning and sorting the items into their correct categories so they can become feed stock for new goods and packaging. The work is physically hard and mentally exhausting -- but not if you're a robot endowed with artificial intelligence. Over the past six months, robotics startup Glacier has installed four recycling robots with AI vision at the Seattle location, and has plans to add two more soon. "We're able to put these robots in places where it's harder to put people," said Sal Coniglio, Recology's CEO, at a recent event at the site. The robots, he added, have enabled the company "to be more effective, be safe, and help us reduce our impact to the climate." A robot works alongside humans, using AI to scan the conveyor belts as recyclables flow past. When it spots a target material, it pounces with an extendable arm that ends in a cup, using a vacuum to grab the bottle or can, then releasing it into an adjacent bin with matching items. Conigilio and Glacier's co-founders welcomed visitors last week to Recology's material recovery facility (MRF) to show off the Glacier robots and announce new funding for the startup. San Francisco-based Glacier on Tuesday shared news of a $16 million Series A round. The funding was led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund, with participation from existing backers including the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, and other new investors. "We live in an incredible era where the technology to supercharge recycling already exists," said Glacier co-founder Rebecca Hu-Thrams. "And Glacier and Recology are proving out the full potential of it." 300 tons per day At the Seattle Recology site, trucks deliver roughly 300 tons of mixed recyclables from the region throughout the day. At the MRF (pronounced "merf") the mixed materials wend their way through the facility as workers and machines separate the recyclables. Two of the robots at the Seattle site straddle a conveyor belt, scanning for high-density polyethylene, better known as HDPE or No. 2 plastics. One robot looks for colored HDPE that's used for items like shampoo or laundry detergent bottles, while the other searches for light-colored plastics such as milk jugs. To help design the devices, Glacier co-founder Areeb Malik, a former senior software engineer for Facebook, worked the conveyor line to better understand the challenges. Watching the process in action on a recent tour, he shared his respect for employees doing the sorting. "It's a really impressive job," he said. The robots, he added, can roughly match the performance of the human workers, and can capture about 80-90% of the target plastics as they flow by. In a second location, two robots survey the end of the line, one grabbing bottles and the other cans that were previously missed. Glacier's robots have been trained with billions of photos to recognize more than 30 different kinds of materials, and the startup is developing technology for recycling plant-based plastics, such as biopolyesters. Amazon is a fan of the eco-friendly biopolyesters, and spearheading an effort to shift food packaging from fossil fuel-based plastics to biopolyesters for use by Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods and any other company looking to go green. Glacier is installing one of its robots at Amazon's nearby Seattle sustainability lab for testing with the new material. Skipping the landfill There are mounting efforts to cut waste and improve recycling rates in order to curb carbon emissions and boost sustainability. Washington state lawmakers recently passed legislation to support that effort, while California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota and Oregon have already approved similar bills. Senate Bill 5284, which awaits a signature by Gov. Bob Ferguson, has multiple provisions: The measure requires consumer product brands to help pay for recycling programs, and creates statewide lists to standardize recycling practices and reduce confusion. SB 5284 also aims to: Glacier has AI robots deployed in four additional states: California, Michigan, Arizona and Illinois. Its vision technology without the robots is operating in Indiana, New Jersey, Minnesota and Texas. The startup has raised a total of $29 million and has 35 employees. Coniglio of Recology is excited about the company's potential to continue integrating with his operations. "Our philosophy is, if something is thrown away, it doesn't just go to the landfill," he said. "We have to find a way to recover those resources and reutilize them, and we're doing that here with Glacier. It's just incredible what we're able to do, to divert more waste and utilize that technology."

Amazon-backed recycling robots get funding to sort materials better

Recycling remains one of the main ways to tackle the crisis. But recycling has its own set of challenges. People often toss dirty containers or throw the wrong materials into the wrong bins. This mix-up leads to contamination. As a result, sorting becomes slower and more expensive, because someone eventually has to pull the wrong items out by hand. To make this process easier and more efficient, companies are turning to automation. One such company is Glacier, a startup that has developed low-cost robotic arms powered by AI and computer vision. These arms can identify and sort over 30 different types of recyclable materials. Founded six years ago, Glacier has already deployed its smart sorting arms in major cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Phoenix, and now Seattle. As it pushes for a broader rollout, the company just raised $16 million in Series A funding, according to reports. Glacier's robots are designed to help Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) -- the places where recyclables are sorted -- operate more efficiently. According to Rebecca Hu-Thrams, Glacier's co-founder and CEO, these facilities are being squeezed.

Amazon-Backed Glacier Raises $16 Million for AI-Powered Recycling Robots | PYMNTS.com

The company's robots are used at recycling centers in major markets like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Phoenix, and will soon be added in Seattle, Glacier said in a Monday (April 28) press release emailed to PYMNTS. "After a year of rapid growth and successful deployments across major markets, we're now positioned to scale our technology even faster," Glacier CEO and Co-Founder Rebecca Hu-Thrams said in the release. Glacier Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder Areeb Malik said in the release: "We've seen data transform entire industries -- and now, it's the circular economy's turn." The company's machines can sort 45 items per minute, using computer vision and smart robotic arms to identify and sort items like PET plastic and aluminum cans, toothpaste tubes and cat food tins, according to the release. In addition to sorting the items at recycling centers, Glacier's AI platform can provide data insights that help recyclers improve their operational efficiency and that help major consumer brands understand the recyclability of their packaging and measure their sustainability initiatives, the release said. Glacier's latest funding round was led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund (EIF), with participation from Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund and other existing investors, per the release. EIF Partner Sasha Brown said in the release: "Glacier's purpose-built AI solves critical challenges in the recycling industry with a practical, affordable approach." AI-powered recycling operations can help the recycling industry meet the challenges of rising costs and stricter contamination standards, PYMNTS reported in December. AMP said in December that it raised $91 million to expand its system, which uses robots with advanced vision systems to sort trash faster and more accurately than humans. Several other AI-powered systems have also gained traction in waste management facilities. There is also a crowded market developing robotics AI for other applications. Some big competitors like Meta, Google-funded Apptronik and Tesla are among those who have made recent announcements about their work on humanoid robots powered by AI and designed to perform household chores and other tasks.