Recyling firm develops kiosk to trade in old cellphones

MOST of us have an old cellphone floating around in a drawer somewhere. Now, inventors are hoping to get people recycling their old phones by rolling out a recycling automated teller machine that can take an old cellphone and pay out an agreed price on the spot.

The machine is sophisticated enough that it can even see if a screen is cracked. The kiosks evaluate unwanted goods for resale and recycling – hoping to inspire people to go green.

Just because a new phone has come out, it doesn’t mean old devices have no value. They can be used as an affordable alternative, for spare parts, or even melted down for the residual value of the metals inside.

Californian company ecoATM, with support from the National Science Foundation, has developed the system that lets consumers trade in old devices for reimbursement or recycling.

Company co-founder Mark Bowles says: “The basic technologies of machine vision, artificial intelligence and robotics that we use have existed for many years, but none have been applied to the particular problem of consumer recycling. But we’ve done much more than apply existing technology to an old problem – we developed significant innovations for each of the basic elements to make the system commercially viable.”

Using artificial intelligence ecoATM kiosks can differentiate between varied consumer electronics products and determine a market value. – Daily Mail