France First Country to Launch Digimarc Recycle

Digital watermarking specialist Digimarc Corporation has announced that France will be the first country to implement Digimarc Recycle on a nationwide basis, for the sorting and recycling of plastic waste.

Digimarc Recycle overcomes the limitations of today’s optical sorting technologies, which are unable to tell certain plastics apart.

The solution comprises watermarks in the form of invisible unique barcodes that are about the size of a postage stamp and that are repeated across the entire surface of the product packaging to create a tile effect that is easy to detect and scan. The codes are either integrated within the packaging label artwork (by means of subtle changes made to the artwork pixels) or embossed into the mould forming the plastic container for the product.

The codes are linked to an extensible cloud-based repository of product attributes (such as brand, SKU, product variant, packaging composition, whether food or non-food). A high-resolution camera on the sorting line detects and decodes the watermarks, which allows the packaging to be sorted into different streams (eg. food-grade plastics versus non-food-grade plastics). This results in better and more accurate sorting streams and consequently higher quality recyclable material.

‘Digimarc applauds the vision and action of the France team and its pioneering member organisations, including Procter & Gamble, L’Oreal, Henkel, Veolia (waste management), CITEO (an eco- organisation), and Pellenc ST (provider of optical sorting units),’ said Riley McCormack, Digimarc President & CEO. ‘Moreover, we are committed to working alongside this group to expand the rollout to other facility operators, brands and retailers in France.’

The watermarks are a key part of a major initiative called HolyGrail 2.0, which is driven by the European Brands Association and backed by dozens of global brands, including Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and Unilever.

Apart from marking a significant milestone in the global fight against plastic pollution, the Digimarc technology is amongst a host of innovations that sit at the overlap between authentication and sustainability.