Data driven solutions to predict losses and understand Alberta’s beverage container recycling ecosystem to drive higher recovery rates

May 2025 - June 2026*

As part of a partnership with the Alberta Beverage Container Recycling Corporation, we conduct a series of studies on Alberta’s bottle return system to gain a comprehensive understanding of it and to inform strategies for increasing recycling rates. This work includes statistical analysis of return data and open source datasets, as well as the application of reinforcement learning and control theory to optimize decision making aiming to maximize returns while minimizing costs and environmental impact.

Top: A simple diagram of a Markov Decision Process for a model used

Bottom: Basic diagram of the bottle return supply chain

Photo sources: Cover: https://albertadepot.ca/programs/ Top: Authored by Dr. Ali Ali Hamidoğlu