Digital product passports to accelerate recycling

Sidel, a global packaging solutions company, is now a member of R-Cycle, a community designing digital ‘product passports’ to accelerate the recycling of plastic packaging around the world.

Using an open tracing standard, it allows gathering of information about the recycling-related properties of plastic packaging. Details are then stored on a common data platform, and are automatically accessed and recorded by any production machinery along the value chain, from packaging manufacturers and converters to the recycling industry.

This enables waste-sorting lines to identify recyclable packaging and to help create recycling-friendly and pure materials for reprocessing into a wide range of high-grade plastic products.

Sustainability Portfolio Director Francesca Bellucci said: “Sidel recently joined R-Cycle because we want to continue playing a key role in bringing the circular economy to life. Having a global standard that connects partners from around the world across the plastic packaging life cycle to record and retrieve all relevant packaging properties will hugely benefit product sustainability. It will improve manufacturing processes as well as the quality of recyclates, resulting in the implementation of a genuinely circular economy.”

Making recycling more effective

Currently, recyclable plastic packaging cannot be separated precisely from waste streams to achieve high-quality recycling, and this has been a significant factor in current low recycling rates — only 9% of plastic waste is ultimately recycled.

There are two acknowledged barriers to effective plastics recycling. One is creating more fully recyclable packaging, an area in which Sidel is helping customers advance by fostering PET adoption, the most recycled plastic material available to date. The other is in increasing the sophistication of the recycling processes, which is the key focus.

It will benefit manufacturers worldwide by improving process efficiency and product quality. Having precise information about source materials helps speed up production, and recording product properties adds value for customers.

R-Cycle was developed by a number of technology companies and organisations from across the life cycle chain of plastic packaging, and the company will contribute to further development as a leading provider of solutions for the packaging of beverages, food, and home and personal care products.

The digital product passport will also help with compliance and in providing the information needed to meet both current and future requirements from customers and legislators, such as calculating carbon footprint, and in extended producer responsibility (EPR), a policy approach to make producers responsible for the treatment or disposal of post-consumer products. It offers a viable solution to the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan, which seeks traceability of plastic packaging to ensure its recyclability, including tracking and managing information about resources, and the digitisation of product data.