The AIM-European Brands Association has partnered global plastics sustainability group the Alliance to End Plastic Waste to run trials for an intelligent waste sorting system under the digital watermarks initiative Holygrail 2.0 to separate plastic packaging waste at recycling plants.
The AIM-European Brands Association is a European sustainability group focused on helping European brands in their sustainability efforts.
The two organisations will work with the city of Copenhagen to conduct the semi-industrial test phase of the pilots. A prototype sorting detection unit will be installed at the Amager Resource Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark. Trials of around 125,000 pieces of packaging comprised of 260 different stock-keeping units will be held. Parameters to be tested include the speed and accuracy of the system and stress-tests to ensure that the unit will be able to handle full-scale operations of sorting packaging waste that has been digitally watermarked.
The need for plastics sustainability and plastic recycling has been growing. Petrochemical producers and packaging manufacturers have made strides in making their products more sustainable and recyclable. But a bulk of the burden still falls on consumers. Consumers must separate their plastic waste and put them in the right recycling bins that correspond with the type of plastic they are recycling. This process often leads to human error and takes up additional resources at recycling plants to correctly sort the waste.
Holygrail 2.0 aims to expedite the sorting process at recycling plants. The digital watermarks will cover the surface of consumer goods packaging and hold information such as packaging type, material and usage. A high-resolution camera detects and decodes the watermark, and the packaging is then sorted into corresponding streams based on specified attributes including food, non-food or polymer types.
Holygrail 2.0 is in its second year and is supported by 130 firms across the packaging value chain. These firms include petrochemical producers, plastics manufacturers and fast-moving consumer goods companies.
Consumer goods firm Procter & Gamble will aid the trials by contributing more than 100 digitally watermarked products for sorting.
