--- title: Glacier Recycling Robots: The Best Inventions of 2025 description: Find out why Glacier Recycling Robots is on TIME's list of 2025's best inventions. canonical: https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318523/glacier-recycling-robots/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-10-09T11:00:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T11:54:58.717Z article:section: Business og:title: Glacier Recycling Robots: The Best Inventions of 2025 og:description: Find out why Glacier Recycling Robots is on TIME's list of 2025's best inventions. og:url: https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318523/glacier-recycling-robots/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc18c3de9795e8243/6998ca3d1500fba723aa6a29/ai-powered-recycling-robots-TIME-best-inventions-2025.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Glacier Recycling Robots: The Best Inventions of 2025 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Glacier Recycling Robots: The Best Inventions of 2025 twitter:description: Find out why Glacier Recycling Robots is on TIME's list of 2025's best inventions. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc18c3de9795e8243/6998ca3d1500fba723aa6a29/ai-powered-recycling-robots-TIME-best-inventions-2025.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Oct 09, 2025 # Glacier Recycling Robots AI-powered sorters by [Catherine Boudreau](https://time.com/author/catherine-boudreau/) ## Catherine Boudreau  Courtesy Glacier The U.S. recycles just 32% of its waste, while the rest is mainly [landfilled](https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials). Part of the problem is that workers and outdated machinery that sort bottles, cans, paper, and plastic at recycling facilities miss a lot of recyclables, leading to waste. Glacier’s AI-powered robot can identify more than 70 recyclable materials, and is being tested on bio-plastics. One robot can prevent some 10 million items from going to a landfill each year, says Rebecca Hu-Thrams, who co-founded Glacier with Areeb Malik. The company is partnering with recycling companies, and consumer brands like [Amazon](https://www.amazon.science/blog/the-path-to-better-plastics-our-progress-and-partnerships) to develop more recyclable packaging designs. **Correction, Oct. 10** _The original version of this story misstated the number of recyclable materials the robot can detect. It's now 70, not 30._ These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318523/glacier-recycling-robots/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318523/glacier-recycling-robots/"},"headline":"Glacier Recycling Robots","datePublished":"2025-10-09T11:00:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T11:54:58.717Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318523/glacier-recycling-robots/","keywords":["Tech","E-Commerce","list","franchise","Magazine","best inventions","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades","Best Inventions 2025"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc18c3de9795e8243/6998ca3d1500fba723aa6a29/ai-powered-recycling-robots-TIME-best-inventions-2025.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Catherine Boudreau","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/catherine-boudreau/"}],"creator":"Catherine Boudreau","articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc18c3de9795e8243/6998ca3d1500fba723aa6a29/ai-powered-recycling-robots-TIME-best-inventions-2025.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318523/glacier-recycling-robots/","name":"Glacier Recycling Robots"}}]}] ```