Community Sentiment
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Do you agree with the AI automation risk score calculated for this occupation?
AI Automation Index
Will AI Replace Recycling and Reclamation Workers?
Task-level automation exposure for Recycling and Reclamation Workers: 14 O*NET tasks scored against their work activities, plus the simulator.
E-E-A-T Verified
Developed & audited by Gini Loh Automation Exposure
13%
weighted task index
14 of 14 tasks scored
Median Salary
$40,240 / year
BLS OEWS, May 2025 — this exact occupation
Employment Level
Very High
2,950,280 people hold this job — size, not growth
Projected 2025–35
+1.8%
employment change
340,500 openings a year · BLS line item
Pay by state
BLS OEWS publishes 54 state estimates for this occupation. Each is its own survey estimate, not the national median adjusted for local prices.
$24,560 – $46,280
Highest medians
Minnesota $46,280
Washington $46,190
District of Columbia $45,740
North Dakota $45,690
Colorado $45,370
Lowest medians
Puerto Rico $24,560
Virgin Islands $31,810
Louisiana $35,340
Arkansas $35,920
Mississippi $36,400
State figures come from the 53-7062 row in the May 2025 state panel. States where the estimate was suppressed or too small to publish are absent.
What the score is made of
Each task is mapped to its work activities, scored for AI automation potential, and weighted by how important those activities are to the job. These are the components.
Automation potential 13%
Importance-weighted mean of the scored tasks. This is the headline index.
Physical work 63%
Share of weighted tasks in hands-on or machine-operating work activities.
Judgment & influence 31%
Share in analysis, decisions, teaching, directing, advising, or caring for others.
Routine administration 6%
Share in documenting, recording, and administrative activities.
Rewritten by O*NET 0%
Share of weighted tasks O*NET rewrote in a recent update. Reported, not folded into the score.
Consequence of error 15/100
Low
O*NET's own rating of how serious an uncorrectable mistake would be here — respondents, not us. Deliberately not in the index: the score measures what AI can do with the task content, and multiplying it by stakes would be our judgment dressed as data.
Constituent Task Mix
14 tasks for this occupation, weighted by work-activity importance. Shares below are of total task weight, not task count.
High exposure (≥ 60% of the task is automatable) 6%
1 tasks
Medium exposure (≥ 35%) 0%
0 tasks
Low exposure (below 35%) 94%
13 tasks
How would you survive?
Move your week away from the high-exposure tasks and toward the ones that need judgment. The simulator recalculates the index as you shift the mix.
Simulate Upskilling →Constituent Tasks
#17872 · Core · 8% automatable
Sort materials, such as metals, glass, wood, paper or plastics, into appropriate containers for recycling.
physical manipulation — Recyclable sorting is unstructured physical labor
Sort recyclable materials.
#17884 · Core · 5% automatable
Clean recycling yard by sweeping, raking, picking up broken glass and loose paper debris, or moving barrels and bins.
physical manipulation — Hands-on cleaning of work areas
Clean work areas.
#17878 · Core · 10% automatable
Operate forklifts, pallet jacks, power lifts, or front-end loaders to load bales, bundles, or other heavy items onto trucks for shipping to smelters or other recycled materials processing facilities.
situated mobility — Driving forklifts requires real-world navigation and control
Operate forklifts or other loaders.
#17882 · Core · 8% automatable
Sort metals to separate high-grade metals, such as copper, brass, and aluminum, for recycling.
physical manipulation — Recyclable sorting is unstructured physical labor
Sort recyclable materials.
#17886 · Core · 8% automatable
Clean, inspect, or lubricate recyclable collection equipment or perform routine maintenance or minor repairs on recycling equipment, such as star gears, finger sorters, destoners, belts, and grinders.
physical manipulation — Hands-on repair of production machinery
Clean production equipment. Repair production equipment or tools. Lubricate production equipment.
#17885 · Supplemental · 8% automatable
Collect and sort recyclable construction materials, such as concrete, drywall, plastics, or wood, into containers.
physical manipulation — Recyclable sorting is unstructured physical labor
Sort recyclable materials.
#17871 · Supplemental · 8% automatable
Extract chemicals from discarded appliances, such as air conditioners or refrigerators, using specialized machinery, such as refrigerant recovery equipment.
physical manipulation — Decontamination requires physical handling of hazards
Decontaminate equipment or sites to remove hazardous or toxic substances.
#17874 · Supplemental · 4% automatable
Deposit recoverable materials into chutes or place materials on conveyor belts.
physical manipulation — Hands-on loading of materials into equipment
Load materials into production equipment.
#17877 · Supplemental · 15% automatable
Operate balers to compress recyclable materials into bundles or bales.
physical manipulation — Recycling equipment operation is hands-on physical work
Operate recycling equipment.
#17883 · Supplemental · 8% automatable
Clean materials, such as metals, according to recycling requirements.
physical manipulation — Manual cleaning of materials for production
Clean materials to prepare them for production.
#17881 · Supplemental · 82% automatable
Record logs of recycled materials or waste chemicals removed from products.
data analysis — Record production data into structured logs
Record operational or production data.
#17879 · Supplemental · 14% automatable
Operate processing equipment, such as fiber-sorters and grinders, to sort, crush, or grind recyclable materials.
physical manipulation — Recycling equipment operation is hands-on physical work
Operate recycling equipment. Operate grinding equipment.
#17873 · Supplemental · 8% automatable
Collect recyclable materials from curbside for delivery to designated facilities.
physical manipulation — Recyclable sorting is unstructured physical labor
Sort recyclable materials.
#17876 · Supplemental · 15% automatable
Operate automated refuse or manual recycling collection vehicles.
physical manipulation — Recycling equipment operation is hands-on physical work
Operate recycling equipment.
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How this was scored
- 1. Tasks. O*NET task statements for this occupation, from a release whose newest record is dated 08/2026.
- 2. Work activities. Each task maps to 1–5 Detailed Work Activities; each activity belongs to one of 41 Generalized Work Activities that O*NET rates for importance (1–5) in this occupation.
- 3. Automation potential. Every work activity carries one score for how far current AI can perform it end-to-end. Tasks inherit the mean of their activities.
- 4. Weighting. Task weight = 0.35 + 0.65 × (importance − 1)/4, scaled by how often the task is performed and by 0.7 for Supplemental tasks. Importance is the task's own O*NET rating where it exists (18,369 of 18,838 tasks); the rest inherit their work activities' importance. The index is the weighted mean.
Check: across the 910 occupations where O*NET also rates how far machine speed sets the pace, this index moves opposite to it (Spearman ρ = -0.49). The more a job is paced by equipment, the less of its task content AI can address — the relationship you would expect if the scoring is working.
Sources · O*NET 31.0 (task records to 08/2026) · BLS OEWS May 2025 · BLS projections 2025-2035 · rubric v2.1 · tasks for O*NET, not a forecast
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