Driven by AIM - European Brands Association and powered by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, over 130 companies and organisations from the complete packaging value chain have joined forces for the Digital Watermarks Initiative HolyGrail 2.0 with the ambitious goal to assess whether a pioneering digital technology can enable better sorting and higher-quality recycling rates for packaging in the EU. Many HolyGrail 2.0 members attended an Open House in November for a look into the positive progress made during trials at the Amager Resource Centre (ARC) in Copenhagen. As a preview, attendees were shown a video capturing the behind-the-scenes prep work ahead of Phase 2 testing by HolyGrail 2.0 staff:
The industrial prototype of the detection module at ARC was developed by Digimarc and Pellenc ST. Ravi Sharma, Sr. Director of Engineering R&D at Digimarc, describes the process of developing the technology in the digital watermark detection module. Joining the presentation, Antoine Bourely, Pellenc ST’s Chief Scientific Officer & Co-Founder, explains the advantages of combining near-infrared/visible (NIR/VIS) spectroscopy and digital watermarks in the sorting machine. See the video below for Ravi and Antoine’s presentation (35:27 – 59:33):
Finally, Tomas Filler, Sr. Manager of R&D at Digimarc, walks through two live demonstrations of the sorting machine to show the capabilities of the device to detect flexible packaging, separating hygiene products from mixed flexibles, and a mix of plastic and non-plastic packaging. See the live demonstration in the video below (1:03:52 – 1:20:22):
As the digital watermarking technology provider of HolyGrail 2.0, we are excited about the progress made in Phase 2. We look forward to Phase 3 where the sorting prototypes will be deployed in large-scale pilots under standard operations at commercial sorting and recycling facilities.
Learn more about Digimarc’s recycling efforts and the Digital Watermarks Initiative HolyGrail 2.0.
