Home of the Pittsburgh Penguins, the PPG Paints Arena recently welcomed TrashBot, the world’s first ever AI trash can. TrashBot uses artificial intelligence to ensure that only trash and not recyclables end up in landfills. This comes on the heels of the PPG Paints Arena and the city of Pittsburgh making strides towards building a more environmentally conscious and sustainable city.
With an interest in further growing their goal of sustainability, the arena has partnered with CleanRobotics to pilot two TrashBots. On your next outing to the Arena if you find yourself confused over trash, check out TrashBot at Level 3 and Level 6. The PPG Paints Arena with a 20,000 guest capacity hosts a wide variety of events throughout the year, ranging from hockey games to concerts to the circus. Guests are serviced by the over 120 concession stands located conveniently throughout the Arena. To encourage fans to ‘Go Green’ the facility has over 200 recycling bins located in and around the building and had partnered with students from Carnegie Mellon University in 2016 to improve their use. Since its construction in 2010, the Arena became and continues to be the only sports facility to receive the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certificate from the US Green Building Council.
The TrashBot uses cameras and sensors to scan items as they enter a waste bin. Artificial intelligence is then employed to sort the items into their respective waste or recycling class. TrashBot currently boasts an astonishing 90% sorting accuracy rate, which is projected to further increase as the technology learns and continues to be refined. The solution is enhanced with a SaaS dashboard, which provides granular waste data and enables transparency into a facility’s waste stream.
Michael Stuever, the Building Operations Manager at the PPG Paints Arena, played a key role in getting the TrashBots in the Arena.
“Pittsburgh is embracing technology faster than ever, we are thankful to have this opportunity to work with PPG Paints Arena and helping them achieve their sustainability goals.” Charles Yhap, CleanRobotics CEO, said.