The competition
TerraSort, a smart waste sorting system, was pitched at the II Sustainable Packaging Symposium and won the 2025 packaging design competition at Expo City Dubai. I led the team of five behind it, Terra Byte.
The entry
It retrofits the three-bin stations Expo already has. A camera identifies each item, a near-infrared spectrometer separates lookalike materials like PLA and PET, and only the correct hatch opens. At an estimated $5,250 a unit, it cost well under half of the two smart bins it was compared against.
What happened next
Expo City is now implementing the design.