Edmonton-based company enters space waste race
Posted September 18, 2025 4:36 pm.
Last Updated September 18, 2025 7:32 pm.
How do you deal with garbage in space? That’s what a team at the University of Alberta is working on.
They are part of a NASA competition to send their space waste prototype to the moon.
Waste Parrot is the university’s spin-off company. They are working on an invention to deal with the garbage created by astronauts who typically produce 275 pounds of waste each month.
“We are trying to sort the ways in the best way possible, in a sense that we are using advanced computer vision models, so that it can help them sort their way, so that they can get the maximum output of their methane or hydrogen or whatever they’re trying to extract out of there,” said Junaid Tahir, an AI researcher and co-founder of Waste Parrot.
Their goal is to turn the garbage into tools, starting with a drone that identifies waste around the moon base, so either an astronaut or a mobile robot can pick it up.
“The astronauts spend their time; we want them to spend most of their time on something productive. Something useful, something on their experiment,” said Tahir.
Plastic bottles can be shredded and turned into pellets, then used for the 3D printing of tools, or they can be mixed with moon sand to make construction materials.
“We will need to sustain them over there. We can’t afford that a tool is broken and they need to come back to the earth and then go and develop that tool and bring it back to space,” said Rafiq Ahmad, an associate professor and co-founder of Waste Parrot.
Biological materials like food waste can be converted into energy sources. Ahmad says this technology can be used on Earth as well.
“The moon is, of course, the target right now, but it’s not for the moon only. It is the first sustainable living on Earth. So all our technologies you’re developing are equally important and beneficial for the Earth as well. That’s what we are trying to do,” said Ahmad.
The team is up against 16 others in the final phase of NASA’s Lunar Cycle Challenge, and Waste Parrot is the only Canadian team still in the competition.
“We would love to see a Canadian flag in the next NASA missions,” said Ahmad.
Artemis II is scheduled to launch in 2026, with Waste Parrot hoping that’s when they’ll see their invention on the moon, if they are selected.
