Digital watermarks, about the size of a postage stamp, are poised to revolutionize plastic packaging recycling. These tiny codes, carrying extensive data about a plastic package’s attributes—type, material, and usage—are imperceptible to the naked eye but easily read by high-resolution cameras. Fully implemented on an industrial scale, digital watermarks, as explored in the HolyGrail 2.0 project, offer a pathway for brands to meet recycling targets, empower recyclers with enhanced sorting, streamline retail operations, and educate consumers on proper waste disposal.
The HolyGrail 2.0 Project: Testing and Implementation
The HolyGrail 2.0 project rigorously tests the application of digital watermark technology, beginning with semi-industrial and later progressing to industrial scales. This involves deploying advanced prototype machinery, equipped with high-resolution cameras, in sorting and recycling facilities. These cameras are designed to detect and decode the information embedded within the digital watermarks. The team focuses on three critical aspects:
Speed and Efficiency
The detection units must scan waste moving at a rate of 3 meters per second, demanding rapid and reliable data capture.
Accuracy in Identification
Each piece of waste must be precisely identified based on its material composition and intended use, ensuring correct categorization.
Detection Efficiency and Sorting
Once identified, the waste is sorted into appropriate categories, yielding high-quality feedstock suitable for advanced recycling processes.
Intelligent Sorting: Enhancing Recycling Purity
The information encoded in digital watermarks facilitates the efficient and accurate sorting of plastic packaging, distinguishing between food-grade and non-food-grade materials. This intelligent sorting improves the purity of the recycling feedstock, allowing the plastic waste to enter various recycling streams, including mechanical and chemical recycling. The result is an increased volume of recycled plastic waste and an enhanced overall quality of recyclates.
This innovation allows for plastic waste to be processed for advanced recycling, increasing the amounts and improving the quality of recycled plastics for reuse.
The Need for Smarter Recycling Solutions
Plastic packaging plays a crucial role in extending the freshness of food products, thereby reducing food waste. However, despite the durability and value of plastic, it is often discarded after a single use.
Complex multi-material packaging, designed for cosmetic or functional purposes, presents a significant challenge to existing recycling systems. These combinations of different plastics or even materials like aluminum often cannot be processed effectively.
Currently, only a small fraction of all plastics ever produced has been recycled, highlighting the urgent need for advanced identification and sorting technologies to improve the quantity and quality of plastic packaging recycling. To be exact, Only 9 % of all plastics ever produced have been recycled, and only 10 % of this proportion have been recycled more than once.
Digital Watermarks: An Information Gold Mine for Consumers and Recyclers
Digital watermarks are set to revolutionize waste management. Printed or embossed on plastic packaging, these marks can be detected by cameras, from smartphones to specialized sorting units at recycling centers. This provides crucial information for efficient sorting.
In the future, digital watermarks could empower consumers to better sort their waste at home, providing access to all necessary information at their fingertips. This enhanced consumer engagement promises to further improve the efficiency of the recycling process.
Meeting the Demand for High-Quality Recyclates
There is a substantial demand for increased volumes of higher-quality recyclates. Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) manufacturers and retailers seek effective solutions to achieve their sustainability goals. This includes strategies to reduce and even eliminate plastic waste by promoting a circular plastic economy.
Today, about 60% of the top 100 FMCG brands already aim for a significantly higher degree of recycled plastic in their packaging, and even try to move towards full recyclability of the packaging they use. This is only possible with more intelligent ways to sort the plastic packaging at recycling centres to enable high-quality recycling outcomes. Digital watermarks and the HolyGrail 2.0 project represent a significant step toward achieving these goals by enabling more effective and efficient recycling processes. By implementing digital watermarks, the plastic waste streams that result can be sorted to enable high-quality recycling outcomes.
