AI is already being used in waste management; specifically image recognition to help sort plastics. This is similar to techniques used in fruit/veg production to grade/bucket produce.
One of the biggest problems in waste management (from dimly remembered podcast) is that the contracts handed out are on hugely long timescales. A Norwegian company has great sorting capabilities - just have organic and non-organic sorted at house holder and they can take recycle anything.
It's great, eco friendly and cheap. But local governments are locked into 10-15 year contracts to take day cardboard and only cardboard to a specific factory, which factory has no incentive to upgrade facilities as they do fine
Yeah, anyone trying to disrupt waste pickup, construction, concrete, pretty much any local services had better be ready to fight well-entrenched incumbents.
Not that it can't be done but it's important to acknowledge local governments have many competing objectives beyond "providing the best service possible at the lowest cost", including promotion of diversity, creation of jobs, supporting local businesses, the perception of fairness, etc.
