How Robots Eased Labor Shortages and Improved Material Quality at Michigan Municipal MRF

Challenges: Staffing and Space Shortages Hinder Recovery

According to Nic VanderVinne, DPW deputy director, staffing the sorting lines has been a longstanding challenge for the Recycling & Education Center. Labor is harder and harder to find, and even if operators are willing to pay more, it’s still nearly impossible to secure the needed manpower. 

The Recycling & Education Center is also limited in terms of physical space. The facility was commissioned in 2009 and much of its current equipment is approaching the end of its useful life as the County looks toward a significant refresh in the next several years.

Solution: Grant Funding Subsidizes Addition of Compact AI-Guided Robots 

With the help of grant funding from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE), Kent County procured three AI-powered robots from AMP. The state has a healthy grant system through EGLE, and Kent County leadership considers itself well informed about funding opportunities. EGLE provided a portion of the funding for the technology acquisition, which the county matched. The funding Kent County received is part of EGLE’s strategy to support recycling infrastructure, improve the quality of recyclable materials, and promote market development using the Renew Michigan Fund, which the Legislature created in 2019 to bolster the state’s recycling efforts. EGLE’s total allocation of $15.6 million in 2023 grants across the state is the most that Michigan has ever invested in recycling infrastructure and technology. 

Kent County was one of the first customers to deploy AMP Cortex-C, a compact version of AMP’s AI-guided robotics system that adapts to space constraints. Cortex-C is a small-footprint, easy-to-install robot that provides materials recovery facilities (MRFs) with a consistent, reliable sortation solution for tight locations that are hard to staff or where existing labor could be redistributed. While the DPW evaluated other technologies, the retrofit solution that robots provide—especially the compact version—made the most sense with the facility’s footprint.

The installation process was smooth and completed over a weekend. The Recycling & Education Center shut down on Friday and was back up and running on Monday. The county incurred some minimal programming and electrical costs, but nothing beyond what was included in the initial bid package.

Results: Immediate Replacement of Needed Labor

Kent County outsources recruitment to a temp agency, so the county is only responsible for onboarding and training. Even so, Kent County has seen a notable decrease in labor costs since the robots’ installation. Almost immediately, the facility was able to drop three to four people off the line and thinks it will be able to operate without another in a quality control position as the team continues to adjust Operating with fewer people frees up site supervisors to focus their attention on other operational needs at the facility. The robots offer an attractive ROI of under two years, and VanderVinne considers the robots a “no brainer given what Kent County was up against in terms of labor, especially coming out of the pandemic.” The robots have been purely additive—without them, Kent County would have had to cut materials or services because they didn’t have people to perform critical sorting tasks.

Results: Higher-Purity Recovered Plastics  

In addition to the stabilization of staffing and the ability to operate with less labor, the other key result was improvement in material quality. Kent County did not deploy robots to increase throughput or capacity; its intent was to sort current volumes more accurately and efficiently. For example, VanderVinne says the Recycling & Education Center couldn’t process polypropylene without AMP’s robots. The county could pull the material out with an optical sorter, but given the visual similarity between polypropylene and PET, it couldn’t quality control the material without a robot. With robots, Kent County achieved a cleaner sort on all grades of plastic it processes, including HDPE and CHDPE. And with the robots’ ability to prioritize the highest-value material, Kent County has seen much improved quality in its #3-#7 bales. 

Kent County chose to configure the three robots in a way that changed the material flow within the plant, allowing them to provide a cleaner, better sort. The facility can move material six different ways on the back side of optical sorters, which adds a great deal of flexibility to the operation. They’re also recirculating some materials, too, to give the robot(s) an additional chance at recovery. 

Results: Upstream Alerting Supporting Operational Adjustments

Kent County has also taken advantage of AMP’s portal for recycling data and insights and robot optimization. The solution is designed to help customers better understand the state of their facility at any point in time, track variations in materials or robot performance, and evaluate new opportunities throughout their operation. Kent County has used the “unexpected material on the belt” notification within the system’s upstream monitoring alerts to check whether or not the eddy current is working properly. While it took a bit of time and adjustments to determine what the threshold should be for the allowable amount of UBCs getting through, now, when the operator receives the alert, he knows the eddy current needs attention of some kind. Aside from preventing loss of material value to landfill, there often are no other data points in a plant that provide this type of information. 

Simple, Straightforward Maintenance

VanderVinne says the robots’ maintenance needs have been minimal. Kent County has two maintenance technicians on staff who have been there for years and are now cross-trained on maintenance and upkeep for the robots. VanderVinne has been impressed with AMP’s relationship with Kent County after the installation, from regular meetings and communication to parts availability.

Looking Ahead: More Opportunities for Advanced Technology and Cost-Effective Sortation

VanderVinne thinks it’s hard for a MRF to justify not having a robot installed at this point in time, given the efficiency gains and return on investment. The technology has advanced quickly, and it keeps getting better. 

The county faces occasional questions about why it stays in the recycling business when there are private sector options. It comes down to providing a cost-effective service to the community and the ability to have long-term, stable processing capacity that doesn’t turn on or off depending on commodity values or changes in ownership. It is committed to resource recovery and sustainability, and as a publicly funded recycling center, Kent County’s embrace of innovation and investments it’s making in technology are critical to helping keep costs down and adapt to ever-changing material streams. 

“By implementing these new technologies, the DPW continues to be on track to achieve our goal of reducing landfill waste. At the DPW, we are continuously innovating and implementing practices that increase our efficiency, improve safety, reduce landfill waste, and provide an overall better environment for Kent County residents.” — Dar Baas, director of Kent County DPW

In addition to the Recycling & Education Center, Kent County operates a transfer station, waste-to-energy facility, and a landfill, which will reach capacity in six to seven years. The county estimates 75,000-100,000 tons of recyclables it generates currently go to landfill because of lack of access to curbside recycling, including at multifamily residences and small commercial businesses. The county recognizes this significant gap in sustainable materials management, as well as the need for organics sorting, which makes up about 40% of what’s in the trash today. Kent County sees its future in mixed waste and recycling processing, and reducing costs through technology advancements is helping it move forward.