France to launch Digimarc Recycle

Digimarc Corp., headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, has announced that France has been selected by the HolyGrail initiative leadership team to become the first countrywide implementation of Digimarc Recycle.

Digimarc develops product digitization and digital watermarking technology. The Digimarc Recycle links covert digital watermarks (used to deterministically identify plastic packaging to any desired level of granularity) with an extensible cloud-based repository of product attributes (such as brand, SKU, product variant, packaging composition, food/nonfood/cosmetics use, etc.), helping to overcome the limitations of optical sorting technologies to improve the quality and quantity of recyclate.

This improvement also unlocks new end markets for postconsumer recyclate that do not exist today. Moreover, the information used to drive this advanced sorting in facilities provides product-specific and location-based disposal instructions via a brand-owned direct-to-consumer digital communication channel accessed via on-pack watermarks or QR codes, the company adds.

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Digimarc and AIM – European Brands Association, Brussels, have trialed Digimarc Recycle in Europe as part of the Digital Watermarks HolyGrail 2.0 pilot project. Digimarc worked with Pellenc ST of France to develop a detection unit for the project, and testing began in October 2021.

In March of last year, the organizations announced they had completed a semi-industrial trial of the technology, demonstrating an average detection rate of 99 percent, while ejection and purity rates on average were 95 percent. Digimarc and AIM say the results demonstrate that Digimarc’s technology performs well across all tested categories of plastic packaging in conditions that represent routine industrial operations, even at higher belt speeds and when the packaging has been soiled.

In addition to providing the information necessary to power advanced sorting at recycling facilities, Digimarc Recycle captures and provides a holistic view of the postpurchase product journey, benefiting stakeholders across the value chain, the company says. That means governments can gain never-before-available insights into the size, scope and content of the waste stream; producer responsibility organizations can design and implement more meaningful and more accurate extended producer responsibility, or EPR, schemes; facility operators can unlock operational efficiencies and insights; and brand owners and retailers can access data to power design-for-recyclability improvements, packaging-usage reductions, consumer behavior insights and overall operational gains.

“Digimarc applauds the vision and action of the France team and its pioneering member organizations, including P&G, L’Oreal, Henkel, Veolia, CITEO and Pellenc ST,” says Riley McCormack, Digimarc president and CEO. “Moreover, we are committed to working alongside this group to expand the rollout to other facility operators, brands and retailers in France because when the only thing that stands in the way of progress is inertia, true leadership is defined by those who take action.”

“We are excited to work with the stakeholders in the French market and are committed to helping expand this initiative in Europe,” McCormack says. “Digimarc is also engaged with other groups, across multiple continents, to open new Digimarc Recycle markets. The technology to effect real change exists today, and delayed adoption leads to permanent and irreversible damage to our planet. The time to act is now.”

Recycling Today has reached out to Digimarc for more information on the timeline of the countrywide implementation and the steps necessary to do so and will provide an update once the information is available.