lasso is a robot that will recycle your recycling at home

waste has reached a crisis point — it’s estimated that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans. research has shown that 91% of plastic isn’t recycled and more than half of what we put in recycling bins ends up in a landfill. in their pure form, recyclables are very valuable but are costly to separate when mixed: PET is different from HDPE, glass bottles are recycled depending on their color, once mixed in together, they can’t be separated meaning that these items cannot be closed-loop recycled and are destined to become road base, etc. 

in order to tackle this problem, lasso is currently developing a prototype for a domestic recycling appliance which ensures you can never put these valuable materials together and therefore guaranteeing that everything that is placed in the appliance can be 100% closed-loop recycled.

the still-in-development lasso washes, grinds the glass, flakes the different plastics (whilst keeping the PET, HDPE etc. separate), and crushes the cans before storing the products for collection every few months. not only will the resulting plastic flakes, glass granules etc., (known as ReProducts) be 100% pure, they will have increased their value enormously and can be sent directly to the (re)manufacturers, bypassing all the complex sorting, transportation and grading processes that are part of the current council run recycling systems.

not only will lasso help the environment but as well your pocket. the company states that will it be marketing and selling the closed-loop recycled products produced by households.

project info:

name: lasso

type: miniature industrial recycling facility for your home

presented at: CES 2021