2021/08/09 by Youpeng Yu, Yu, Youpeng, Ryan Grammenos +1
Computer Science · Engineering · Environmental Science · #Advanced Neural Network Applications #Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Electrical engineering #Image and Video Processing (eess.IV) #Municipal Solid Waste Management #Recycling and Waste Management Techniques #cs.CV #eess.IV #electronic engineering #information engineering
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2108.06274
arxiv created 2021/08/09 · openalex publication_date 2021/08/09 · arxiv updated 2021/08/16 · openalex created_date 2021/08/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The ever-increasing amount of global refuse is overwhelming the waste and recycling management industries. The need for smart systems for environmental monitoring and the enhancement of recycling processes is thus greater than ever. Amongst these efforts lies IBM's Wastenet project which aims to improve recycling by using artificial intelligence for waste classification. The work reported in this paper builds on this project through the use of transfer learning and data augmentation techniques to ameliorate classification accuracy. Starting with a convolutional neural network (CNN), a systematic approach is followed for selecting appropriate splitting ratios and for tuning multiple training parameters including learning rate schedulers, layers freezing, batch sizes and loss functions, in the context of the given scenario which requires classification of waste into different recycling types. Results are compared and contrasted using 10-fold cross validation and demonstrate that the model developed achieves a 91.21% test accuracy. Subsequently, a range of data augmentation techniques are then incorporated into this work including flipping, rotation, shearing, zooming, and brightness control. Results show that these augmentation techniques further improve the test accuracy of the final model to 95.40%. Unlike other work reported in the field, this paper provides full details regarding the training of the model. Furthermore, the code for this work has been made open-source and we have demonstrated that the model can perform successful real-time classification of recycling waste items using a standard computer webcam.