Kiosk enables consumers to trade in electronic products

Using artificial intelligence (AI) developed through two US National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants, ecoATM kiosks can reportedly differentiate between consumer electronic products and determine a market value. If the value is acceptable, users have the option of receiving cash or store credit for their trade or donating all or part of the compensation to one of several charities.

According to a statement, ecoATM is said to find second homes for three quarters of the phones it collects, sending the remaining ones to recycling channels to reclaim any rare-earth elements and to keep toxic components from landfills.

‘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,’ said ecoATM co-founder and NSF principal investigator Mark Bowles. ‘But we’ve done much more than just apply existing technology to an old problem — we developed significant innovations for each of those basic elements to make the system commercially viable.’