A review on automated sorting of source-separated municipal solid waste for recycling
Abstract
A crucial prerequisite for recycling forming an integral part of municipal solid waste (MSW) management is sorting of useful materials from source-separated MSW. Researchers have been exploring automated sorting techniques to improve the overall efficiency of recycling process. This paper reviews recent advances in physical processes, sensors, and actuators used as well as control and autonomy related issues in the area of automated sorting and recycling of source-separated MSW. We believe that this paper will provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art and will help future system designers in the area. In this paper, we also present research challenges in the field of automated waste sorting and recycling.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
NIRS is a good candidate and is already widely used in other recycling processes, but with a limited number of studies.
“A good candidate is near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) [21] which is already widely used in other recycling processes, but with a limited number of studies [22,23].”
From Classification of waste wood categories according to the best reuse using FT-NIR spectroscopy and chemometrics (2023) · cites this paper as [22]
The application of spectroscopic techniques combined with chemometrics is highly innovative and already applied in other sorting facilities.
“The application of spectroscopic techniques combined with chemometrics is highly innovative and already applied in other sorting facilities [22,23].”
From Classification of waste wood categories according to the best reuse using FT-NIR spectroscopy and chemometrics (2023) · cites this paper as [22]
Cites
A model for types and levels of human interaction with automation
Parasuraman, R., Sheridan, T. B., & Wickens, C. D. (2000) · IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics - Part A: Systems and Humans · doi:10.1109/3468.844354 · Cited by 4,195 · see citing works
Evaluation of methods for sorting CCA-treated wood
Jacobi, G., Solo-Gabriele, H., Townsend, T., & Dubey, B. (2007) · Waste Management · doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2006.09.014 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Artificial intelligence for waste management in smart cities: a review
Fang, B., Yu, J., Chen, Z., Osman, A. I., Farghali, M., Ihara, I., Hamza, E. H., Rooney, D. W., & Yap, P.-S. (2023) · Environmental Chemistry Letters · doi:10.1007/s10311-023-01604-3 · Cited by 629 · see citing works
A comprehensive review of separation technologies for waste plastics in urban mine
Zhang, Y., Wang, Q., Yalikun, N., Wang, H., Wang, C., & Jiang, H. (2023) · Resources, Conservation and Recycling · doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2023.107087 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
Towards Higher Quality of Recycled Plastics: Limitations from the Material’s Perspective
Alassali, A., Picuno, C., Chong, Z. K., Guo, J., Maletz, R., & Kuchta, K. (2021) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su132313266 · Cited by 68 · see citing works
Mancini, M., & Rinnan, Å. (2023) · Analytica Chimica Acta · doi:10.1016/j.aca.2023.341564 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Mancini, M., Taavitsainen, V.-M., & Rinnan, Å. (2024) · Waste Management · doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2024.02.033 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
- Authors
- Gundupalli, S. P., Hait, S., & Thakur, A.
- Affiliations
- Indian Institute of Technology Patna (IN)
- Corresponding author
- Thakur, Atul
- Venue
- Waste Management
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-02
- Volume
- 60
- Pages
- 56-74
- ISSN
- 0956-053X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2522127752
- Cited by
- 583
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 59 · 2025: 91 · 2024: 85 · 2023: 84 · 2022: 72 · 2021: 68 · 2020: 46 · 2019: 39 · 2018: 25 · 2017: 14
- FWCI
- 2.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Waste Management (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Waste Management and Disposal › Municipal Solid Waste Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Waste Management and Disposal › Waste Management and Recycling
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Industrial Automation and Control Systems
- Keywords
- automated waste sorting, recycling, sensors, actuators, autonomous systems
- MeSH terms
- Refuse Disposal, Waste Management, Recycling, Solid Waste
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
