The AI tool often confuses items, but is “improving all the time”

An English council is embracing AI-powered apps to help households adapt to new recycling laws.

East Suffolk council has launched an app ahead of the county’s recycling changes which will require paper and card to be collected separately from plastics, metal, cartons and glass from Monday.

The changes affect over 120,000 households in East Suffolk and the app has had 11,000 downloads as of last week.

Councillor Paul Ashton, East Suffolk’s Deputy Leader thinks councils should embrace new technology to improve local services. He pushed for the app’s development. “There are lots of changes nationwide across different councils…that makes bin questions complicated. That was the main factor driving [the app] right now, said Ashton.

The app is trialling an AI feature for residents to photograph household items to see how to recycle them. The tool identifies and matches objects to a  database.

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“It didn’t recognise tissues or loo rolls.”

It doesn’t always get it right. One resident, Jackie Reeves, said: “It didn’t recognise tissues or loo rolls. It recognised a toothpaste tube as a toothbrush but I found out that they are not recyclable. Again it didn’t recognise a plant pot properly so it’s a bit frustrating as most of the items I tried it on are fairly everyday.” 

Jason Hendy, director of the app maker, Cloud 9 Technologies,said the feature is still evolving.

“It’s in its infancy, but it’s dramatically improving all the time,” he said.

There have been some positive responses to the app.  Helen Riches, from Walberswick, called the AI feature “quite clever.” 

Riches is pleased about the changes to the recycling scheme. “It will be excellent to have our glass collected at some point in the future as my husband’s film club gets through ten bottles a meeting,” she said. “I’m very keen on recycling so it will be good to do it more efficiently.”

The changes form part of the government’s Simpler Recycling Scheme, introduced this March to standardise waste collection across England.

East Suffolk is one of many councils which failed to meet the 31 March Simpler Recycling Scheme deadline. According to the BBC, up to 79 councils missed the target, citing funding issues.

Despite the teething issues, Jackie Reeves finds the app helpful overall. “It’s very useful for bin collections and sends weekly reminders at a time convenient to you,” she said.