FW-HTF-P: Workers and Technology Together (WATT)

In this planning grant, the WATT project research team will explore the potential for autonomy technologies to improve the efficiency, productivity, safety, and security of the organic waste processing industry. Methane released from organic waste (e.g., food scraps) accounts for a significant percentage of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere that contribute to the warming of the planet, and by extension, climate change.

The current methods of sorting and processing organic waste are inefficient, hazardous, and undertaken primarily by low-wage temporary workers who lack job security, living wages and benefits. The research undertaken by the WATT project research team will lay the foundation for future social and technological innovations within the organic waste processing industry that will increase operational efficiency, create job stability, skills training, and upward mobility for workers, create opportunities for human-machine teaming, and ultimately reduce the impact of this industry on climate change while uplifting workers.

The WATT research team, through a transdisciplinary approach consisting of real-time, on-site observations, focus groups, surveys, and interviews with waste industry stakeholders (line workers, business owners, safety inspectors/enforcers), will identify socio-technological innovations that will address the challenges with separation, conversion to energy, legal frameworks, adaptation of best practices, and climate change analyses in the context of organic waste processing. The research team consists of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and subject matter experts representing a diverse cross-section of academic disciplines (e.g., waste management, manufacturing and mechanical engineering, computer science, business, law, anthropology, and art and design), an integral and critical piece of the project’s approach, that will reveal holistic, transdisciplinary approaches for improving an industry critical to the responsible functioning of a 21st century society.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.