We, the Autonomous River Cleanup (ARC), are a student project from the Robotic Systems Lab at the ETH Zurich. In 2020, we started our work by tackling plastic waste in rivers and continuously expanded to new fields. Our goal is to reduce waste disposal in nature and improve recyclability with the help of robotics and machine learning. We work closely with our industrial partners and several European universities. Our team mainly consists of volunteers and researchers. More than thirty students from various universities have completed their thesis with us.

We develop technology to create a positive environmental impact and to train the next generation of leaders for sustainable development.
We achieve this by incorporating state-of-the-art sensing, AI, and robotics into the process to unlock the value of waste. We seek to provide accurate estimates of pollution in nature to encourage policymakers and industry leaders to take action against pollution.

Sorting waste on the Limmat with LIVIA, our first full-scale prototype.

Showcasing the improved sorting stage on robotic fairs and conferences.

Deployment of the ARCAM at the Kornhausbrücke to monitor riverine waste.

Deployment of MARC at the EWZ power plant Letten for waste sorting.