The recycling industry is getting a helping hand from robots, which can sort trash faster and more safely than humans, and artificial intelligence, which gathers valuable data about what's been thrown out, Jennifer A. Kingson reports.

Why it matters: Automation could help solve recycling's many problems, including the rise in hard-to-recycle plastic waste and consumer botch-ups that lead to contaminated recycling streams.

Driving the news: A new generation of trash-sorting robots with articulated arms and brainier vision systems is beginning to work alongside humans at recycling centers.

• The robots are getting better at culling recyclables from trash streams, which keeps the materials out of landfills.
• While still expensive — sometimes $300,000 each — they're coming down in size to occupy the same footprint as a human worker.

On the software side, AI-driven optical technology can provide real-time data about waste stream contaminants — such as too much peanut butter left in a jar — and other metrics.

• "It's giving us this data so that we can make better decisions," says Matt Flechter, recycling market development specialist at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, which is experimenting with robotic sorters from Glacier and Machinex.
• His hope? Using that data to steer manufacturers toward more recycling-friendly product designs.

How it works: Robots train their AI vision on the waste stream and use their arms to suction out recyclables.

• "It's like a vacuum cleaner," Flechter says. "It knows what to pick up as things are coming across the conveyor belt. It's reading the optical signature of whether it's a yogurt tub, water bottle, paper bag or a milk carton."
• Many such systems can learn about new types of packaging and materials over time.

Case study: Recycle Ann Arbor installed a sorting robot from Machinex called the SamurAI at one facility in November.

• While it's sorting as fast as a human, its accuracy still needs work, Bryan Ukena, CEO of Recycle Ann Arbor, tells Axios.
• "We continue to tweak and say, 'No, this isn't the right item we want to pick — we want to pick this item,'" he says. "And so it's a process that you go through, but it learns."

Between the lines: Recycling line jobs are monotonous, dangerous and hard to fill — and robots are starting to do them faster and more accurately.

• This doesn't mean that people will be tossed out of jobs, says Rebecca Hu, co-founder of Glacier.
• "There's just not enough sorting capacity today to begin with," she tells Axios. "As you install more of these types of robots, people are getting moved to safer or more mundane parts of the operation."

Where it stands: These are early days, but AI recycling startups have lofty goals of boosting the circular economy and combating climate change.

The big picture: Recycling in the U.S. has been beset by problems, from China's ban on importing waste to poor consumer compliance, a patchwork of local recycling rules, and the money-losing economics of running a recycling program.

• Currently, buyers who want to create new packaging out of recyclables can't get as much suitable material as they'd like.

What's next: With robotics and AI, "our real goal is to reduce the cost of sorting these materials as well as increasing their value," says Matanya Horowitz, founder of AMP Robotics, the leading company in this space.

• "Ultimately we think it's important that the industry be able to take dirtier and dirtier materials if you want to increase the amount of materials that are recycled."

What we're watching: Expect to hear more about "extended producer responsibility" laws, which attempt to hold manufacturers responsible for the cost of recycling their products.

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April, an AI-powered tax software startup, has launched the complete version of its fully automated e-filing capability, Axios' Hope King reports.

How it works: April's service is built upon multiple AI language models trained to read, understand and keep up with changes in the U.S. tax code.

• It's not a stand-alone service. Instead, April integrates its technology into that of banks and other financial platforms to give users a real-time sense of what their tax bills might look like ahead of filing time.
• Come tax season, April can submit filings to the IRS with the right underlying forms based on clients' answers to personalized questions.

State of play: April has been supporting 12 institutions since March 1, and thousands of taxpayers are using the service.

• Taxpayers in a handful of states who are customers of April's client institutions can now use it to file their state returns, with national expansion on the horizon.

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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates recently went for a "memorable ride" in an autonomous car from British startup Wayve, he writes in a new blog post.

• "The car drove us around downtown London, which is one of the most challenging driving environments imaginable, and it was a bit surreal to be in the car as it dodged all the traffic," Gates writes.

What they're saying: Gates says we're nearly at a "tipping point" for autonomous vehicles, which will require major changes in how we think about our cars.

• "Who is responsible when an autonomous vehicle gets in an accident, the person riding in the car or the company that programmed the software?" he writes.
• "Governments will have to create new laws and regulations. Roads might even have to change."

Reality check: Autonomy will develop fastest in the trucking and taxi worlds, he argues, while passenger cars "will likely be one of the last vehicle types to see widespread autonomous adoption."

💬 Alex's thought bubble: What Gates is describing is increasingly the consensus view among those of us who are mostly optimistic about autonomous cars but understand the many roadblocks need to be navigated before we're zipping around in our own personal self-driving cars.

Big Potato is trying to elbow in on the egg industry's turf this Easter, Axios' Kelly Tyko reports.

• Potato producers are marketing their spuds as a budget-friendly decoration alternative, given the sky-high price of eggs lately.

Driving the news: The idea originated with internet memes joking that cash-strapped, Easter-celebrating families would have to paint potatoes instead of eggs this year.

• Potatoes USA, a national marketing board representing growers and importers, is working to amplify the trend by providing tips and encouraging spud-painters to share their work online.

What they're saying: "I think they're looking to save money, and I think they're just excited about a new thing to try," Erin Bracken, a mom of three who works with Potatoes USA, said of those embracing potatoes this Easter.

Yes, but: Egg prices have fallen a bit from their recent highs, and it's tough to get people to break from long-held traditions.

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