Volvo's robots may offer solution to Lebanon's refuse crisis

Swedish car maker Volvo has come up with what might be an ideal solution for the growing environmental catastrophe in Lebanon, where refuse has been piling up in the streets for months, becoming a health hazard and triggering mass protests under the You Stink campaign slogan.

According to Manufacturing.net, the Volvo group is working on a joint venture with three universities and the waste recycling company Renova to develop a robot that interacts with a garbage truck and its driver to pick up trash.

ROAR, which stands for Robot-based Autonomous Refuse handling, aims to develop a robot that can collect garbage and recycling bins in any neighbourhood and empty them in collection trucks with the help of instructions from the truck's operating system, all under the supervision of the truck driver, who can thereby avoid heavy lifting.

"The purpose of ROAR is to demonstrate how humanity will use smart machines to assist with a broad range of activities in society in the near future," according to the manufacturing and product development news website.

"Renova is expected to test it on a vehicle sometime around June 2016."

ROAR aims to develop a robot that can collect garbage and recycling bins in any neighbourhood and empty them in collection trucks

If used in Lebanon, ROAR could turn trash into a profitable industry through recycling the collected waste.

It can also be used in recycling plants, saving labour costs.

According to a 2014 report by the Regional Solid Waste Exchange of Information and Expertise network in Mashreq and Maghreb countries, only 20 percent of Lebanon's waste is recycled or composted, while the other 80 percent is buried.

Besides wasting resources that could be utilised through recycling, the trash crisis has other consequences - namely health and safety threats.

With the approaching wet winter season, experts have warned against the prospect of acid rain. When emissions from uncollected garbage merge with oxygen and moisture, they could turn into acid that will combine with water droplets.

Lebanon has long suffered from poor public services, including electricity and water shortages, along with the recently escalating trash crisis.

The country's already poor infrastructure has been further burdened by the influx of more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees, boosting Lebanon's population by more than 25 percent.