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Comstock’s names Sortify as startup of the month
The founders are developing a low-cost system that attaches to existing trash and recycling bins.
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Malvika Choudhary - Sat, 17, Jan 2026
- 11:56 EST
- 12
Sambhav Agarwal is the co-founder of Sortify. / Photo by Katy Karns/ engineering.ucdavis.edu
Sortify, a startup co-founded by Indian-origin students, has been named Comstock’s Startup of the Month for its work on improving how waste is sorted at the point of disposal.
The startup is led by University of California, Davis students Sambhav Agarwal, Yash Nadge and Yahya Habibi.
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The team is developing a camera-based system that attaches to existing trash and recycling bins and uses artificial intelligence to guide users on where an item should be discarded.
According to the California Management Review at the University of California, Berkeley, non-recyclable material placed in recycling streams costs U.S. material recovery facilities at least $300 million each year in additional labor.
The idea for Sortify was developed in a UC Davis course titled Innovation for Impact: Climate Entrepreneurship, taught by climate entrepreneur and university alumnus Nathan Sedlander. Students in the course were divided into teams and tasked with building business models around major environmental challenges.
In winter 2025, the Sortify team was assigned to work on the problem of waste valorization. After speaking with around 100 researchers and stakeholders in the waste and recycling sector, the students concluded that contamination at the disposal stage was a major source of cost for waste management systems.
Instead of replacing existing infrastructure, the team designed a device that can be attached to current bins. The approach earned Sortify a top-10 finalist spot in the Big Bang! Business Competition.
The founders are now working to make the device more durable and to address privacy concerns, particularly in school settings. One option under consideration is a downward-facing camera that allows users to hold items under the lens and receive guidance without being identified.
As the system collects more data, it is expected to improve its accuracy. Agarwal said manufacturing the cameras at scale will require significant resources and that the team is exploring funding opportunities. The group has built a working prototype and plans to collaborate with an elementary school in Davis.
In a LinkedIn post, Agarwal said the project had grown out of a classroom assignment into a broader effort to influence everyday behavior around waste disposal. He said the team spoke with more than 90 stakeholders and toured multiple waste management facilities while developing the system.
“Our goal isn’t just to reduce waste contamination, but to increase waste education for younger generations and the general public,” he wrote.
Agarwal is a computer science student at the University of California, Davis. He has served as technical projects manager and IT coordinator at the ASUCD Pantry, president of SacHacks, and a product innovation intern at American Express. He is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science with a minor in technology management at UC Davis.
Nadge is a computer science student at the University of California, Davis, and has worked as an AI engineer intern at Folsom History, where he helped develop an interactive kiosk powered by a fine-tuned large language model.
He has also worked as a venture capital deal sourcing intern at RevRoad and as a growth intern at fintech startup Zywa. He is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science at UC Davis.
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