Fost Plus, Belgium's packaging producer responsibility organisation (PRO), is leading a large-scale trial of a sorting technology that uses invisible digital watermarks to separate flexible food packaging from visually similar non-food plastic films. The project is being carried out in cooperation with food manufacturers Mondelēz International, Ferrero, PepsiCo and Pladis. It forms part of the HolyGrail 2030 – Circular Packaging Consortium, an initiative involving around 75 companies and organisations facilitated by AIM, the European Brands Association.
As part of the trial, watermarked food packaging is collected via Belgium's blue bag system for post-consumer plastics and metal packaging and drinks cartons and is pre-sorted before being sent to Hündgen Entsorgung in Germany....
