PI: Howie Choset
University: Carnegie Mellon University
Industry Partner: Ned Eldridge, CEO eLoop
This proposal seeks to build upon current work in e-waste recycling with phones, tablets and watches at CMU (sponsored by Apple) to begin a new focus on the flat panel display (FPD) waste stream in collaboration with a Pennsylvania e-waste recycling company called eLoop. Electronic waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the world. In the US, currently only 15% of an estimated 7 million tonnes of e-waste is captured for processing and this gap is only expected to grow as the waste stream increases to 12 million tonnes in the ten years. E-waste contains materials critical to our supply chain, national infrastructure, and security but also harmful to our environment if not properly processed. Currently, ewaste recycling is manual and the growth of e-waste will outpace our ability to process it if automation isn’t introduced. We need this automation to make humans more effective and improve safety.