When it comes to recycling, it can be a complicated process beyond just sorting into plastics, metal, and paper. For example if you’ve been to Japan, a simple plastic bottle can be further separate into its wrapper and its cap, which is recycled differently from the actual bottle itself. It is this complicated process that can sometimes put people off from recycling.

However over in France, a startup by the name of Uzer has created a smart trash can called Eugene that will help people decipher the whole recycling process. Basically it is a trash can that comes with a barcode scanner that will scan the objects that you are about to throw away. So for example like in the plastic bottle we mentioned above, it could inform users that the wrapper and cap needs to be separated from the plastic bottle before throwing.

Or in the case of objects with more than one type of material, like food packaging where there might be wood, plastic, and/or paper, it could tell users that this part should be disposed in general waste, while another part should be tossed into the recycling bin, and so on. To top things off, Eugene comes with its own accompanying app, so if you use it at home, you can keep track of things you’ve thrown away so that you can be reminded that maybe it’s time to restock on milk, egg, and etc.

Unfortunately for now Eugene is still in the prototype stage and is only expected to go on sale late 2017, which admittedly isn’t too long of a wait so if you’re interested in more details or to see it in action, check out the video above.

Filed in Gadgets >Green. Read more about and .

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