HOLYGRAIL 2.0

HolyGrail 2.0: Major brands sign up to explore digital watermarks to improve packaging recycling

More than 80 major European brands, including P&G, PepsiCo and Mondi will collaborate to explore the feasibility of using "digital watermarks" to improve the sorting of recyclable packaging across the European Union (EU), as part of the HolyGrail 2.0 project spearheaded by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

In 2016, P&G’s sustainable packaging expert Gian deBelder helped develop and spearhead the HolyGrail collaboration in Europe, as part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy.

The HolyGrail project, which aims to place digital watermarks on packaging, so they can be identified by a range of key stakeholders, won edie’s Circular Economy Innovation of the Year Award for 2020.

In developing the project, more than 30 companies across the plastics packaging value chain, including manufacturers, waste managers and academics, worked together for more than a year to prove the sorting concept.

It aims to use “digital watermarks” the size of postage stamps on consumer goods package that can be detected and decoded by a standard high-resolution camera on the sorting lines when in a waste sorting facility. Once identified, the facility is able to sort packaging into different streams. It is hoped this will deliver more accurate sorting streams, which in turn would create a larger market for higher-quality recyclates.

The project had secured the backing of more than 50 organisations to launch HolyGrail 2.0 – the second phase of the project, bringing it to the mass market for the first time.

Now, AIM, the European Brands Association, has gathered more than 85 companies to join the HolyGrail 2.0 project to drive better sorting, and therefore recyclability of packaging across the EU - list - more like this - link