Waste Robotics, a company building a robotic waste sorting solution, has received a $1.4 million investment from the federal government through the Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) foundation.
The announcement of the funding was made by François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Infrastructure and Communities and MP for Saint-Maurice–Champlain, on behalf of Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains.
“We are very pleased to be able to demonstrate our technologies under real commercial conditions.”
“The Government of Canada is proud to support companies like Waste Robotics, which are vital to helping us create and develop cutting-edge clean technology,” said Minister Champagne. “Our government is making cleantech a priority today so that all Canadians can reap the benefits of this fast-growing market in the future.”
Québec City-based Waste Robotics integrates advanced waste handling processes, computer vision, deep learning algorithms, and state-of-the-art robotic technologies to enable more precise and profitable waste recycling facilities. The solution is currently being built for organic recycling, single-stream recycling, and construction and demolition applications.
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Founded in 2016, the company is aiming to build intelligent recycling robots that would replace the increasingly expensive and rare 90,000 human pickers in North American recycling centres. It also hopes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by diverting tens of thousands of tonnes of organic material from landfills every year. Waste Robotics’ solution won the Grandmother’s Pitch Prize at StartupFest in 2017, and won the 2018 Startup Challenge at the Quebec Environmental Technologies Show.
“Everyone knows what it’s like to recycle waste in their home,” said Leah Lawrence, President and CEO of the SDTC. “This robot will help cities do it on a massive scale in a really cool, high-tech way, resulting in less garbage in our landfills.”
The SDTC is a foundation created by the federal government to support Canadian companies that are developing and demonstrating new environmental technologies that address climate change, clean air, clean water and clean soil. The foundation was part of the 2017 federal budget’s $2.3 billion commitment for cleantech firms.
“We are very pleased to be able to benefit from the support of SDTC to demonstrate our technologies under real commercial conditions, thus strengthening the growth of Waste Robotics,” said Eric Camirand, founder and CEO of Waste Robotics.
Image courtesy Waste Robotics.