SPRITE 2 - Sustainable Plastics Recycling Innovation by Tagging Electronically

世界经济论坛称，塑料包装垃圾是800亿美元的全球机遇。只有14%的塑料包装被送到回收工厂，只有9%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，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本可避免的废物进入垃圾填埋场。这将通过一系列行动的组合来实现，这些行动通常分为减少(移除不必要的包装)和再利用(可再填充方案和回收)类别。在新冠肺炎大爆炸期间，所有这些方面的进展都遭遇了重大挫折。虽然人们正确地将重点放在减少塑料的消耗上，但要消除所有塑料是不切实际的，因为它有许多好处，包括轻便(相关的低运输成本和碳足迹)和坚固耐用。因此，必须提高回收利用率和质量，以便保留最高的材料价值以供再利用。大多数改善回收的方法都着眼于使分类/识别系统更智能，例如使用红外线识别塑料类型。相对较少的活动被用于使包装更智能，以便更容易地识别、分类、分离、再加工和再利用。我们的项目专注于通过在每个包装上提供机器可读的唯一数字标识来简化和增加塑料的回收。这一新功能提供了一个技术平台，可以实现广泛的不同创新和应用。押金退还计划已经得到了很好的验证，但基于旧技术(20世纪90年代)，依靠将瓶子退回杂货店来换取押金单，这很容易受到欺诈。遗留系统只适用于已经拥有良好工艺的国家，例如斯堪的纳维亚半岛、德国、荷兰(所有这些国家都有95%的循环率)。我们看到了开发一种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的行为并改善回收结果。在该项目中，我们将调查使用务实的超低成本RFID技术来推动回收领域的改进，特别是展示数字回收和奖励计划的潜在用例。

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.