[David]

A friend and former boss of mine founded CleanRobotics which makes the TrashBot, a trash can that sorts trash from recyclables: https://cleanrobotics.com/trashbot/

I haven't seen the output so I can't comment on how well they work firsthand, but the idea is pretty cool. As far as I know (which is not far) they don't attempt to sort recyclables by material, unfortunately.

[mulmen]

If this is possible why not just have a "plastic" bin and then transport everything mixed and sort at the recycling facility? What's the benefit to deploying all these sorting machines everywhere? Do they go to different locations?