Fresh Perspective

Raghav Mecheri

CEO and co-founder of BinIt

What began as an idea for a self-sorting trash bin turned into a career in recycling for BinIt CEO and co-founder Raghav Mecheri.

As a sophomore at Columbia University, Mecheri and eventual BinIt co-founder James Bollas entered an engineering and design challenge focused on building solutions for issues facing large-scale urban communities. The pair turned their attention to waste and recycling after observing the inefficiencies of their dormitory’s three receptacles.

Their invention, a self-sorting robotic bin that segregates recyclables, inspired the company name and Mecheri’s interest in the waste and recycling industry.

“Turns out that nobody really wants to pay $1,000 for a robotic trash can,” he says. “But what that did was give us a ton of exposure to the circular supply chain.

“The more we saw of the recycling industry and of this broader material chain, the more excited we got by the potential that technology could have to … move the needle, both operationally but also from a safety perspective.”

New York-based BinIt’s priority is identifying hazardous materials, like batteries, in waste and recycling facilities before they cause a thermal event, a focus spurred when Mecheri experienced a fire while installing cameras at a facility.

“[This] is not typically what you experience as the people building technology,” Mecheri says. “You don’t get to see the scary parts of a fire; you only think about it in concept or if a customer calls you and tells you they had one. … I don’t think we’d have [shifted our focus to batteries] if we hadn’t seen that.”

In January, BinIt launched its artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Visia, which uses AI and X-ray technology to offer visibility into inbound material streams.

In the following interview, Mecheri discusses the evolving safety landscape and the role of AI in the recycling industry.

"The more we saw of the recycling industry and of this broader material chain, the more excited we got by the potential that technology could have to … move the needle.”

Recycling Today (RT): How is the safety landscape changing in the recycling industry?

Raghav Mecheri (RM): Buildings are being constructed with new types of materials, new types of concrete, new types of reinforced fiber. The municipal recycling material stream is ever-evolving because consumer packaged goods is an ever-evolving sector, and the electronic waste stream is moving at a rapid velocity.

For us as a company, [being] that initial layer of protection coming into facilities, we get to see a lot of that firsthand. It’s going to become more relevant ... to actually gain a granular and nuanced understanding of one’s materials, whether that’s for safety or compliance with things like producer responsibility on the horizon.

RT: What do you see as some of the biggest issues in the industry today?

RM: At some point, we’re going to have to come up with standardization for things like reporting formats, which I know a lot of our customers deal with on a day-to-day basis. Every state, every municipality ... has different reporting obligations. Whether that’s a waste audit or whether that’s composition data, a lot of [this hasn't] really been streamlined completely. A lot of that is due to the rapidly evolving nature of legislation in our industry, but I think there’s going to be a period [where] some level of standardization comes in, and when that happens, it’s going to be a sprint to get there in time and to adapt to those regulations quickly enough.

RT: How do you see the role of AI evolving in the recycling industry?

RM: There’s a difference between technology that is cool and technology that drives business value. The things that will really move the needle ... will pop up in a six-to-12-month time because it’ll involve truly understanding existing processes across our supply chain [and] understanding where there is scope for this technology to plug in and complement what we’re already doing.