The "Holy Grail" project to improve the sorting accuracy of packaging using "digital watermarks" is being led by the European brand association AIM (Belgium). In Copenhagen, in cooperation with the non-profit organization Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), a first semi-industrial field test of the prototype recognition sorting unit from French manufacturer Pellenc Selective Technologies and U.S.-based Digimarc has now begun, according to AIM. This is reported to achieve sorting accuracy of more than 95 percent using NIR/VIS infrared technology. Around 125,000 packagings provided for this purpose by member companies of the "Holy Grail" initiative are to be tested in the coming weeks. In Germany, a sorting unit from Norwegian machine manufacturer Tomra, also equipped with a Digimarc module, will be tested at the end of 2021, he said. The initiative plans to launch products equipped with the digital watermarks in Germany, Denmark and France from 2022, once the test is complete. Members of the initiative reportedly include companies such as Alpla, Amcor, Henkel, Procter & Gamble, Rewe, Tetra Pak and Unilever. A new member of Holy-Grail's European Advisory Group, according to the initiative, is the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Verpackung und Umwelt (AGVU), which is said to also accompany the planned large-scale trial in Germany.

 

Sources:

• KI (9/14/2021)
• packreport.de (9/13/2021)
• Photo: © Plastics Technology