SPRITE 2 - Sustainable Plastics Recycling Innovation by Tagging Electronically

SPRITE 2 - 通过电子标签实现可持续塑料回收创新

• 批准号: 10004516
• 金额: $ 162.89万
• 依托单位: PRAGMATIC SEMICONDUCTOR LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Small Business Research Initiative
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10004516
• 关键词: SPRITE; Sustainable; Plastics; Recycling; Innovation

Plastic packaging waste is a \>$80Bn global opportunity according to the World Economic Forum. Only 14% of plastic packaging reaches recycling plants and only 9% is actually being recycled, whilst 40% ends up in landfill. The UK's Clean Growth Strategy has a goal to reduce emissions from landfill and achieve zero avoidable waste by 2050\. One way to reduce emissions from landfill is to stop the avoidable waste from reaching it. This will be achieved by a combination of actions generally grouped into reduce (removing unnecessary packaging) and re-use (refillable schemes and recycling) categories. Progress on all these has seen a significant setback during the COVID-19 pandemic.Whilst there is rightly focus on reducing the amount of plastic that is consumed it is not practical to eliminate all plastic due to its many benefits including it being lightweight (with associated low transport costs and carbon footprint) and its robustness. It is, therefore, essential to increase recycling rates and quality so that the highest material value is retained for reuse. Most approaches to improving recycling have looked to make the sorting/identification systems smarter, for example using infra-red to identify types of plastics. Relatively little activity has been directed towards making the packaging smarter so that it is easier to identify, sort, separate, reprocess and reuse. Our project focuses on simplifying and increasing recycling of plastics by providing a machine readable unique digital identity onto each pack. This new capability provides a technology platform that can enable a wide-range of different innovations and applications.Deposit-return schemes are already well proven but based on old technology (1990s), relying on returning bottles back to grocery stores in exchange for a deposit slip, which is open to fraud. The legacy systems are only suitable for countries that already have well-developed processes, e.g. Scandinavia, Germany, The Netherlands (all of whom have \>95% recycling-rates). We see an opportunity to develop a modern consumer-focused system that uses smartphones to reward consumer behaviour and improve recycling outcomes.Within the project we will investigate the use of PragmatIC's ultra-low-cost RFID technology to drive improvements within recycling, specifically demonstrating potential use-cases for a digital recycling and reward scheme.

根据世界经济论坛的数据，塑料包装废物是一个价值800亿美元的全球机会。只有14%的塑料包装到达回收厂，只有9%实际上被回收，而40%最终被填埋。英国的清洁增长战略的目标是减少垃圾填埋场的排放，并到2050年实现零可避免废物。减少垃圾填埋场排放的一种方法是阻止可避免的废物进入填埋场，这将通过综合行动来实现，这些行动通常分为减少（去除不必要的包装）和再利用（可再填充计划和回收）两类。在COVID-19大流行期间，所有这些方面的进展都出现了重大挫折。虽然人们正确地关注减少塑料消耗量，但消除所有塑料并不现实，因为它有许多优点，包括重量轻（与此相关的运输成本低）和碳足迹）及其坚固性。因此，必须提高回收率和质量，以便保留最高的材料价值以供再利用。大多数改善回收利用的方法都希望使分类/识别系统更加智能，例如使用红外线来识别塑料类型。相对较少的活动已针对使包装更智能，使其更容易识别，分类，分离，再加工和再利用。我们的项目重点是通过在每个包装上提供机器可读的唯一数字身份来简化和增加塑料的回收。这种新功能提供了一个技术平台，可以实现各种不同的创新和应用。押金返还方案已经得到了很好的证明，但基于旧技术（20世纪90年代），依赖于将瓶子返回杂货店以换取存款单，这很容易欺诈。传统系统仅适用于已经拥有完善工艺的国家，例如斯堪的纳维亚、德国、荷兰（所有这些国家的回收率均>95%）。我们看到了开发一个以消费者为中心的现代系统的机会，该系统使用智能手机来奖励消费者行为并改善回收结果。在该项目中，我们将研究使用PragmatIC的超低成本RFID技术来推动回收的改进，特别是展示数字回收和奖励计划的潜在用例。