INEOS Olefins and Polymers Europe have joined the Digital Watermarks Initiative HolyGrail 2.0* to significantly improve the sorting and recycling of plastic packaging waste.
The initiative aims to address and improve how plastic waste is sorted into different types, making the recycling of household plastic waste far more efficient. Although plastic packaging collection rates are improving across Europe, challenges in sorting mean that recycled plastics are often a mix of types and grades, making the recycled product difficult for plastics converters to re-use.
The Digital Watermarks Initiative HolyGrail 2.0* is pioneering a ground-breaking technology. Digital watermarks are imperceptible codes which cover the surface of the packaging. They are around the size of a postage stamp, imperceptible to the human eye, but detectable by special cameras linked to high speed waste sorting systems.
The HolyGrail 2.0* initiative will provide the whole packaging value chain with a robust, cost-effective, and easily scalable system to optimise the sorting of post-consumer plastics packaging and improve the quality of the recycled product.
Joining the initiative reinforces INEOS’ commitment to creating a truly circular economy where all plastics can be properly recycled and reused in high-quality products, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of plastic products and packaging.
This builds on the commercialisation of the INEOS Recycl-IN range of PE and PP products, launched in 2019, which provides converters with a complete portfolio of resins with up to 70% post-consumer recycled content and properties on-par with virgin polymer.
Rob Ingram, CEO, INEOS Olefins and Polymers North, says: “Partnering with HolyGrail 2.0 demonstrates our commitment to taking action across the value chain, to create a more sustainable future. It fits perfectly with the INEOS goal to increase recycling rates and the use of recycled materials back into everyday products. This is an exciting next step on our path to full packaging circularity.”
“Plastics are essential to our everyday lives. They keep our food fresh and safe to eat, and help us produce other day-to-day items, like our phones and our televisions. But we recognise and share people’s concerns - working together we can make the plastic economy more circular, and help to reduce plastic waste.”
Watch BBC feature (YouTube) for more on how the HolyGrail watermarks work.
[* Digital Watermarks Initiative HolyGrail 2.0. Driven by AIM – European Brands Association, powered by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste]
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O&P Europe’s action across the value chain
Some of the action O&P Europe is taking to create a more sustainable future:
- Investing in state-of-the-art technology that will enable O&P Europe to work with partners to produce new, recyclable flexible packaging films, creating the potential to prevent approximately one million tons of waste per year from being sent to landfill or incineration
- Building Project One, the most environmentally sustainable cracker in Europe and largest investment in the European chemical sector in a generation
- Conducting a feasibility study into the construction of a 100-megawatt water electrolysis plant for producing green hydrogen at our site in Cologne, which could cut CO2 by more than 100,000 tonnes per year
- The Recycl-IN polymer range, which compounds post-consumer recycled plastic with new highly engineered virgin polymers to meet the demand for recycled products that meet high performance specifications
- Recycling investments that will drive up recycling levels and produce food-grade certified recycled content.
This is just a small sample of the action being taken across INEOS to deliver net zero emissions and develop a circular economy in which valuable materials stay in use. Go to https://www.ineos.com/sustainability/ for more.