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The family-run skip and waste management business, which processes up to 280,000 tonnes of mixed recycling a year, depends on 24 agency workers stationed along its rapid conveyor belts. They sift, in real time, through a procession of debris that ranges from old trainers and VHS cassettes to slabs of concrete. It is the sort of work that few are queueing up to do, and the figures bear that out. Annual staff turnover at the plant runs at 40%, mirroring an industry-wide retention crisis that is now forcing British SMEs to confront a question once reserved for car factories and Amazon warehouses: can robots do this instead?
For Sharp Group, the answer may be taking shape on the line itself. A humanoid robot known as Alpha, the Automated Litter Processing Humanoid Assistant, is being trained to pick through the waste stream alongside the human pickers it may one day replace. Built by China’s RealMan Robotics and adapted for British recycling conditions by London-based TeknTrash Robotics, Alpha represents an unusual bet on humanoid form factors in an industry that has, until now, leant towards bespoke automated kit.
“The attraction of a humanoid is that you can put it here and it stays here,” says Chelsea Sharp, the plant’s finance director and granddaughter of founder Tom Sharp. “It will pick all day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s not going to apply for a holiday, it’s not going to have a sick day.”
That blunt commercial logic sits against an equally blunt safety case. Work-related injury and ill-health in the waste sector run 45% higher than the national average across other industries, and the fatality rate is a sizeable multiple of the broader workforce. Sharp Group is proud of its own safety record, but the maths of recruitment in such an environment is becoming increasingly difficult to defend.
“The belt is moving all the time, you’re constantly picking. I go through a lot of pickers because they just aren’t up to the job,” says line supervisor Ken Dordoy. The firm rotates staff through different waste streams every 20 minutes, with periodic stoppages built in for respite, a regime that speaks volumes about the strain involved.
Alpha, for now, is no quick fix. It is in the early stages of an exhaustive training programme, with a plant worker wearing a VR headset alongside the robot to demonstrate what good picking looks like. The dual challenge, TeknTrash founder and chief executive Al Costa explains, is teaching the machine first to identify objects on a moving belt, and then to lift them reliably. His firm’s HoloLab system feeds Alpha a torrent of data from multiple cameras, generating millions of training data points a day.
Costa is candid about the gap between marketing hype and operational reality. “The market thinks these robots are prêt‑à‑porter, that all you need to do is plug them into the mains and they will work flawlessly. But they need extensive data in order to be effectively useful.”
The humanoid approach has the advantage of slotting into existing infrastructure without expensive plant redesign, no small consideration for SMEs operating on the thin margins typical of the recycling sector. The alternative, increasingly favoured by larger operators, is wholesale retrofitting with bespoke automated kit.
Colorado-based AMP, which runs three of its own plants and supplies equipment to dozens of facilities across Europe and the UK, takes that route. Its systems use air jets to fire items into chutes, with AI continuously sharpening the machine’s ability to identify and sort materials. “Our robots are much more efficient than humans, probably eight or 10 times the pace,” chief executive Tim Stuart says. “The AI technology and jets have really increased the capacity and efficiency and accuracy of what we can do.”
California’s Glacier, co-founded by Rebecca Hu‑Thrams, deploys mounted robotic arms paired with AI vision. She is quick to note the sheer unpredictability of the material her machines must contend with. A leaking beer can may threaten sensitive equipment; her customers, she adds, have seen “unbelievable things like hand grenades and firearms coming through their facility”. The proposition, she says, is improvement at scale: “As our models learn from more than a billion items, the AI gets better and better. And we’ve always designed our technology so it works not just for big urban plants, but for the semi‑rural facilities running on much tighter budgets.”
For all the differences in approach, the conclusion across the industry is converging. The labour-intensive model that has propped up British waste processing for decades is reaching the end of its useful life. Academics studying the sector see the same trajectory. Professor Marian Chertow of Yale University argues that “robotics coupled with AI-driven vision systems offers the greatest potential for improving material recovery, worker experience, and economic competitiveness in the recycling sector”.
That leaves the awkward question of what happens to the people currently doing the picking. Chelsea Sharp does not pretend the work is anything other than gruelling. “This is a really dirty place to work. You can see the dust, you can hear the noise. It’s not that nice.” Her stated plan, however, is reskilling rather than replacement. “The plan is to upskill those staff. They’ll be maintaining and overseeing the robots. And it brings those same people away from any dangers, including the unpleasant environment, heavy lifting and noise.”
Whether the rest of the sector follows Sharp’s lead, or whether automation ushers in a quieter, leaner workforce by default, will become clear over the next few years. What is no longer in dispute is that the British recycling line of 2030 will look nothing like the one running in Rainham today.
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Humanoid robots step onto the recycling line as waste firms battle 40% staff turnover
The bid, pitched at $125 a share, represents a $20 premium on eBay’s closing price in New York on Friday. Ryan Cohen, GameStop’s chief executive and the activist investor who engineered the retailer’s improbable turnaround, has signalled he is prepared to take the offer directly to eBay shareholders should the board rebuff him.
Cohen, who has built a reputation for cage-rattling boardroom interventions since making his name as the founder of online pet retailer Chewy, told the Wall Street Journal that eBay “should be worth, and will be worth, a lot more money,” adding that the marketplace “could be a legit competitor to Amazon” under fresh ownership. Under the terms tabled, he would become chief executive of the enlarged group on neither salary nor bonus, taking remuneration solely on the basis of share price performance.
The proposal has been met with thinly veiled scepticism from the City and Wall Street alike. Morgan Stanley described the two companies as having “fundamentally different” business models, while analysts at Bernstein pointed to the yawning gap between GameStop’s balance sheet and the scale of the prize, saying they would be “surprised if anything became of it”. Sucharita Kodali, retail analyst at the research firm Forrester, was equally blunt in conversation with Business Matters, warning that the deal “would saddle eBay with GameStop’s debt” and noting drily: “The truth is, we are not necessarily putting two strong companies together.”
Even so, the financial architecture is in place. GameStop, currently capitalised at around $11.9bn, has secured a commitment letter from TD Securities for some $20bn of debt finance, and Cohen has earmarked $2bn of annual cost cuts within twelve months of completion, savings he intends to wring largely from eBay’s sales and marketing function, which he argues has failed to capitalise on what GameStop terms a “marketplace with near-universal brand recognition”.
For eBay, the approach lands at a delicate juncture. Founded in 1995 as a haven for hobbyists and collectors, the platform was once a defining icon of the early internet but has watched its active user base contract from 175 million in 2018 to 136 million today, ground steadily lost to Amazon, Shopify-powered direct-to-consumer brands and a new wave of social commerce upstarts. The board confirmed it would consider the proposal, though insiders have privately questioned whether a leveraged bid from a smaller bricks-and-mortar operator constitutes a credible route forward.
GameStop’s own story remains one of corporate theatre. Catapulted into the public consciousness during the pandemic, when an army of retail investors organising on Reddit forced a short squeeze that briefly rewrote market mechanics, the company has since used its inflated valuation to shore up its balance sheet and pivot under Cohen, who took the chief executive role in 2023. Net profit climbed to $418.4m in 2025, up from $131.3m the previous year, although top-line sales continued to slide, the familiar pattern of a retailer cutting its way to profitability rather than growing into it.
Investors delivered their verdict swiftly. eBay shares closed up 5 per cent in New York on Monday, while GameStop tumbled by more than 9 per cent, the market’s blunt assessment that any value created by the deal would flow firmly in one direction.
For Cohen, however, the strategic logic extends beyond the spreadsheet. GameStop’s network of roughly 1,600 American stores would, he argues, hand eBay a ready-made physical footprint for live commerce, authentication services and other ventures that have struggled to gain traction online alone. Whether that proposition is sufficient to overcome the structural and financial objections piling up against the bid is, for the moment, very much an open question.
What is not in doubt is that Cohen has, once again, ensured that the corporate establishment cannot ignore him.
Read more:
Gamestop tables shock $55.5bn swoop for eBay as Cohen sets sights on Amazon
The deal underscores how the world’s deepest-pocketed technology groups are doubling down on the capital as the AI arms race intensifies. Microsoft, alongside Meta and Amazon, is committing billions of dollars to compute, talent and real estate in pursuit of a slice of what is shaping up to be the defining commercial contest of the decade.
Film House carries no small amount of cinematic provenance. Built in the 1920s as the first British outpost of French film studio Pathé, complete with private screening rooms, the building later housed HMV before serving as Nike’s UK headquarters. Texas-based developer Hines acquired the property in 2023 and has since refurbished it to court the buoyant demand for premium workspace. Tenants will find a gym, a bar, a rooftop terrace, a so-called hidden courtyard, showers and changing rooms, and, in a nod to the building’s heritage, a cinema in the basement.
Even with Film House secured, Microsoft is understood to be hunting for a substantially larger London headquarters to consolidate its wider workforce in the capital. Property agents suggest the company has its eye on a 300,000 sq ft footprint, three times the size of the Soho building, somewhere along the Elizabeth Line, where transport connectivity has reshaped occupier appetite.
A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment on the Film House lease but said: “We are committed to the UK and have facilities across the country. We regularly review our portfolio to make sure it meets the needs of our people and our long-term business.” Hines also declined to comment.
The American group is far from alone. Last month OpenAI signed a lease for a larger base near King’s Cross, just around the corner from rival Anthropic, which recently confirmed plans to move into the same neighbourhood. The clustering effect is unmistakable, and is rippling through the wider SME ecosystem of AI start-ups, scale-ups and supporting professional services drawn to the gravitational pull of the majors.
Mike Gedye, head of European technology leasing at CBRE, said: “We expect London’s depth of talent and established tech ecosystem to continue reinforcing its position as a global hub for technology and AI. Tech and AI businesses are making a footprint in London on a relatively small or short-term lease, but upsizing significantly within 18 to 24 months.”
That trajectory has profound implications for the capital’s commercial property market. CBRE estimates AI companies could absorb close to half of all the speculative office space currently under construction in London. Between now and 2033, the firm’s analysts forecast that AI occupiers will take up to four million sq ft of workspace, the equivalent of roughly eight Gherkins.
Not everyone is convinced the boom will hold. Some in the property industry warn that AI’s productivity gains may ultimately translate into fewer jobs across the wider economy, eroding tenant demand. Landlords, however, are betting the other way, calculating that the explosive growth of start-up technology businesses will more than compensate for any contraction at more traditional employers.
For London’s smaller technology firms, the message from Microsoft’s Soho move is clear: the capital’s AI gold rush is gathering pace, and the postcodes around it are about to get very crowded indeed.
Read more:
Microsoft plants AI flag in Soho with Film House lease as London tech land grab accelerates
The FTSE 100 bank comfortably outpaced the £1.9 billion pencilled in by City analysts, with results published on Friday showing total income up 9.5 per cent year-on-year at just shy of £4.4 billion. Crucially for shareholders, its net interest margin, the gap between what the bank charges on loans and pays out on deposits, widened to 2.47 per cent from 2.27 per cent a year earlier.
Buoyed by the stronger quarter, NatWest told investors it now expects full-year income, stripping out one-off effects, to land at the “top end” of its previously guided range of £17.2 billion to £17.6 billion, citing “our latest expectations for interest rates and economic conditions”.
The numbers complete a hat-trick of bumper updates from Britain’s high-street giants, following similarly strong figures from Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays earlier in the week. Together they underline how the higher-for-longer rates regime, re-imposed by the energy price shock that followed the outbreak of war on 28 February, has transformed the economics of UK retail and commercial banking, at least in the short term.
Paul Thwaite, chief executive of NatWest, was at pains to play down any suggestion that the bank was simply riding a geopolitical wave. “It’s a good set of numbers but the numbers are driven by doing things for customers,” he said, pointing to deposits up 2.5 per cent year-on-year at £445.5 billion and net lending 6.6 per cent higher at £396.4 billion.
For the millions of households and small businesses on the receiving end, however, the numbers tell a more uncomfortable story. With inflation expectations climbing, swap rates, the wholesale benchmarks that lenders use to price fixed-rate mortgages, have jumped sharply. The average two-year fixed residential deal stood at 4.83 per cent before the conflict, according to data provider Moneyfacts, but has since climbed to 5.78 per cent. The Bank of England held its base rate at 3.75 per cent this week but warned that borrowing costs may need to rise “significantly” if price pressures persist.
Higher rates, of course, cut both ways. They flatter margins, but they also stress-test the loan book. NatWest set aside a £140 million charge to reflect the war’s likely drag on the economy, taking its quarterly impairment for expected credit losses to £283 million, up from £189 million in the same period last year. The bank is now modelling UK economic growth of just 0.4 per cent this year, with unemployment peaking at 5.7 per cent.
Thwaite was candid about the limits of forecasting in the current climate. “None of us know exactly how it’s going to pan out over the course of the rest of the year; a lot of that will depend on the duration of the energy shock,” he said.
For now, though, NatWest’s books are holding up. Katie Murray, the bank’s finance chief, said the lender had “not seen significant shifts in customer behaviour or signs of stress”, a guarded but pointed reassurance for investors mindful that today’s fatter margins could quickly be eroded if SME borrowers and mortgage holders begin to buckle under the weight of dearer debt.
For Britain’s small and medium-sized businesses, already navigating tighter credit conditions and weaker demand, the read-across is sobering: the banks may be thriving on the new rate environment, but the cost of capital for the rest of the economy is heading in only one direction.
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Natwest profits jump to £2bn as Iran conflict drives mortgage rates higher
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