Getting rid of obsolete or out of date munitions such as grenades and warheads has been a major problem ever since the invention of gunpowder. Up until relatively recently, the only alternatives have been to explode them, bury them, burn them, or dispose of them at sea. None of these are ideal and all them have serious safety and environmental issues as well as being expensive. The good news is that automated systems have arrived that do the dirty work for us. In Alabama, for instance, a team of nine robots recently disassembled 700,000 submunitions. Not only does the system make decommissioning faster and safer, but it also allows the Army to recycle the components for the first time.