Automatic Waste Classification using Computer Vision as an Application in Colombian High Schools

This paper presents a system to classify waste in an automatic way as an application of computer vision in Colombian high schools. This is in order to introduce this kind of topics into the high school education, making young students learn about things in this field that could facilitate the student performance later in university. Such process is consistent with the standards proposed by the Colombian government, and developed in the In Andres Bello educative institute or high school. The teaching topics in technology are modified according to an application of computer vision that classifies waste in three stages. The first one corresponds to the image acquisition system, the second one is the image processing module, and the third one is the robotic classification module. The system developed classifies three kinds of waste with a performance over 70 percent, which indicates that the system could be used in scholar contexts to teach people about the waste classification process, and to get students involved in research projects.