24. Are invisible barcodes the holy grail of plastic recycling?

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James Piper: Hello. Welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one sided stories. In this episode we will discuss how batteries are collected, explore how invisible barcodes are improving, sorting our, train tickets, rubbish or not. And I have a question all about glitter. I'm Joe Piper, author of the Rubbish Book and I'm joined by Robbie Staniforth, my far from rubbish friend. Hi, Robbie.

Robbie Staniforth: Hey, James.

James Piper: Did you survive the randomly moving bin days of Christmas?

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, gosh, only just. They do totally jumble things up, don't they? Keep you on your feet.

James Piper: Yeah, as everyone knows, my bind days a Thursday t move to a Saturday. What about you? Where did yours move to?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, as moved from a Monday to a Tuesday. And we've also got the Christmas tree, collection day to navigate to.

James Piper: Oh yes, that must be coming up. Well, I was delightedus I became the b influencer I've always dreamed of being. I was meticulously studying when Albin days were going to be, making sure I got it all right. And I could just tell the street was copying me. I was always first to put my bins out. What?

Robbie Staniforth: They were nosing into your bin and thinking, oh, they've got it out quickly, Rush.

James Piper: Look, as soon as I put mine out I could hear everyone coming out of their doors. So the influencer, was strong, and loads and loads of people who sent me a message over Christmas asking if a specific tweet or X or whatever we call it was me because there was one shared on social media over the period and honestly it just, I, I'm not surprised people thought it was me. Do you want to hear it?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. Go on then.

James Piper: It's one of my revised bin days tomorrow, recycling the big one. I'm pumped, I'm ready, I'm full of adrenaline. I won't sleep tonight.

Robbie Staniforth: That definitely moves your happy bin day, everyone on a touch, doesn't it? Yeah, but it wasn't you, it wasn't me.

James Piper: It definitely could have been. I was so excited. Thank you to everyone who's listened over Christmas. I thought we were gonna have these big drop ups over the Christmas periods but you know, loads of people tuned in and listen. I think we had like almost a thousand people on Boxing Day listening to us. Ro V that.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, that's absolutely amazing.

James Piper: Yeah, yeah, thank you all so much. And just link to that, it'd be really good.

Spot Fight asks you to leave a review of Spotify or Apple

I ah, we very rarely ask for reviews early on and we always miss that opportunity. So I Just wanted, you know, it's a new year. I just wanted to say if you have that opportunity to leave us a review, we would be super grateful. We have a bit of an interesting situation going on at the moment. We've got Spotify with something like 84 reviews and Apple with like 75. And so I'm just intrigued just to which one going to get to 101st.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, competition time between the streamers.

James Piper: Yeah. Which one do you want to take, Robbie, Apple or Spotify?

Robbie Staniforth: I think I'll take Spotify. You've got the Apple devices, don't you?

James Piper: Okay, so Robbie is s gonna. You're hoping Spotify is going Toa hit 101st. You're 16 away.

Robbie Staniforth: 16 away. I've got a head start, have I?

James Piper: You've got a head start, but Apple has been ramping up recently, so I've got 25 to get. So guys, depending on who you want.

Robbie Staniforth: To support, get yourself on Spot Fight.

James Piper: I would love you to go on to Apple if that's okay. So, yes, please just leave us a rating that's super helpful in terms of helping us grow. And if I win, I'll be delighted. So, yeah, get onto Apple. Don't get on Spotify. And one of my friends over the Christmas period, actually, I just, I was so happy this happened. One of my friends is a research scientist. He does a lot in plastic and he was in Antarctica. So shout out to Kieran, who was in Antarctica over the Christmas period and I just said to him, if you wouldn't mind, could you just give talking rubbish a listen while you're out there so that we've ticked off all seven continents.

Robbie Staniforth: That's cheating, James.

James Piper: Yeah. Now the problem with this is, is like the way the Internet works in Antarctica, it sort of roots all over. So we don't actually get a listen in Antarctica, but he did leave us a Spotify comment saying, you know, loveving the show. Merry Christmas from Antarctica. So thank you so much, Kieran, for listening out there. I just, just imagining you walking around on the knowow listening to talking rubbish. It is just such a nice feeling.

Robbie Staniforth: We've made it.

James Piper: Thank you so much.

Detective Superintendent Doug Blackwood says recycling makes perfect target for thieves

and speaking of bind days and putting your recycling out, a news story caught my eye over the festive period. I'm not sure if you'sure it was Robbie. It was in the Telegraph and they were saying recycling could make you a target for thieves. Really? Yeah, this is what they were saying. So Detective Superintendent Doug Blackwood was quoted as saying recycling creates a Shop window for burglars looking for a target.

Robbie Staniforth: How does that work? What, stealing your rubbish? No.

James Piper: Well, you've bought a new electronic device, you put your box out in the bin, right?

Robbie Staniforth: Okay. So you've got a big Samsung TV box or whatever, and someone's thinking, ah, there's a Samsung TV in there.

James Piper: Exactly. And it makes thieves, like, a bit interested in what you might have in your house, apparently so.

Robbie Staniforth: Gosh, I've never heard that before.

James Piper: Yeah, piece of advice.

Robbie Staniforth: Thanks. Who was it? Doug Blackwood.

James Piper: Detective Superintendent Doug Blackwood was saying, just be careful with your recycling. And I suspect what he was saying is kind of either take your recycling back to the tip if you've got lots of valuable items,

00:05:00

James Piper: or just spread it out over a period. And he was also saying, or sorry, Wiltschhire Police actually were saying, keep the expensive goods packaging at the bottom of your recycling bin.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, fine. So all of those expensive electronics or, I don't know, high class jewellery packaging maybe.

James Piper: Yeah. I don't know how big a problem this is, but, you know, it caught my eye. I was intrigued by it. It was a story about recycling.

Robbie Staniforth: It is about recycling, to be fair. Yeah, that's a new one on me, but okay, hide your rubbish, guys.

James Piper: You go.

We had a lot of comments about reusable nappies when we released episode

So, additions and corrections. we've got a couple here. So I've actually built up quite a lot over the festive period which we're going to spread over the next few weeks. So thank you everyone who's been writing in, but certainly when we released the episode, we had a lot of comments about reusable nappies, which I really appreciated because, as you know, Robbie, I'm sort of delving into this world right now and I'm trying to work out what we're going to do. So full honesty because I said I would keep everyone updated with wipes, we've managed to use Cheeky Wipes, which are reusable washable wipes. excellent. Lots of people recommended Cheeky Wipes to me, so thank you for doing that. We'd already bought a load and that's been really useful, so we've managed to avoid wipes. except when we're out and about, we've got a pack just in case when we're out and about. in terms of nappies, we have started with Disposable. Now, that is just because there's so many nappies that they get through in these early days. It's unbelievable. And I just, honestly, I have not got the. We're already doing so many washes and I'm already feeling so guilty about those. So if I had to add in the reusable nappies that, you know, we're getting through like 10 to 12 nappy changes a day. So I'm. We've had to pause on the, on the nappy front. We're just using disposable. But I am m really hopeful we're going to move to reusable. And partly that's because of some of these comments. So Elizabeth v on M LinkedIn and Alice on WhatsApp were kind enough to send me lots of information. And one of the things they talked about reusable nappies because we talked about the that washing can make them quite close to disposable, in terms of environmental impact. Well, Elizabeth pointed out that if your electricity is on 100% green tariff, which I am. So this is relevant to me. And you use reusable nappies with two children rather than just one, which is kind of what I was focused on, then the carbon footprint could be 97% less than disposable nappies.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, wow, that's amazing.

James Piper: I know. I was amazed by this because I couldn't find this study anywhere when I was doing my research. So I did ask Elizabeth where her Information came from and she said it was her own calculations. So I don't think I can be blamed for not having that on the podcast. But I am giving this a shout out. Elizabeth definitely knows what she's talking about. She u. Her profile is very much helping people move into reusable nappies. So this is her expertise, not ours. Ye so I am m quite k. I think maybe we should ask her if she wants to come on for an interview because it'd be really good to talk more about this. But, but thank you so much for sharing that knowledge. And obviously it's something I am considering. You know, once I get out of this kind of immediate situation where I'm just doing so many washes because there's lots of sick and so many disposable nappies because there's lots of changes. Once I get out of this situation, it'd be really nice to move to reusable nappies. So than.

Robbie Staniforth: Well, thanks to Elizabeth for writing in.

James: Elimination communication can help avoid nappies forever

James Piper: And the other thing lots of people writing about was, something called elimination communication. Have you heard of this?

Robbie Staniforth: Nope. That's a new one on m me. You're making me feel very old here, James.

James Piper: Well, this is, I'm not sure how new this is, but certainly I think this Is what Ktherine Ryan. Did you know the comedian? She.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yes, I know her.

James Piper: She always said she'd potty trained her children at about one, one and a half, something like that. The way you do it is you teach your kids to kind of have these cues that tell you they need the toilet. So whatever that looks like, a bit of a face or hands or something that gives you that. That cue that they need a toilet, and then you hold them over the potty, and then you can avoid nappies. And, there's lots of people who talk about this because if you do that early on, like at one, and then you're avoiding them being in nappies for two years, and oay that can, obviously, from a sustainability perspective, that can have the biggest difference. So, amazing. So we're researching that at the moment. Elimination communication.

Robbie Staniforth: It sounds great, too.

James Piper: Yes. On other podcast, when we talk about addition and questionions on other podcasts, they often talk about blowing things wide open. When I listen to no Such Things as a fish, they say, we've exposed this story. Well, this is our moment, isn't it? Because.

Robbie Staniforth: Ah, brilliant.

James Piper: We talked in our Christmas episode about Heroes having the Do Not Recycle logo. So I couldn't understand this. Quality Street Roses celebrations all said recycle at supermarkets. So you could take the rappers back to supermarkets, you take the pouch back to supermarkets. But Heroes didn't. And we said we'd reach out to Mondeleay because it just didn't make any sense to me. It's made by the same company that makes Roses. Why would it have a Do Not Recycle?

Robbie Staniforth: Why is the wrapper different?

James Piper: Why is the wrapper made of something that you can't recycle? So I understand you reached out to Mondeleay.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, so I spoke to Kelly. Hey, Kelly, thanks so much for your help, at Mondeleay. And the reason. Drum roll, please.

00:10:00

Robbie Staniforth: That they're not recyclable is because of the eclair. It actually has the little eclair. You know, those hard things, I can't eat them with my teeth. that. Those hard little chocolates, they have a pet wrap instead of LDPE or pp, which then triggers a Do Not Recycle for all of them, basically. So there's this one wrapper in the, Heroes that mean everything is unrecyclable. So basically, what we need to tell people is you can actually recycle every. Except for that ECL rapper. And I understand that Mondelez are already, working on changing that Wrapper. so, hopefully in, by next year maybe, they'll all be recyclable. So mystery solved.

James Piper: It's unbelievable, isn't it? So what we're saying, I mean, this is, I think this is our biggest value as a podcast so far. When we launched, I thought, what are we going to do that's going to change the world? I think telling people they can recycle their heroes, rappers and ignore the label, except for EC Clair is. This is our moment.

Robbie Staniforth: This is investigative journalism is finalist.

James Piper: Sure. Abute. Amazing. Well, there we go. So I'm glad we've got that addition. So if you've got anything you want to talk to us about, as so many do, you can go onto social media. We're at RubbishPodcast. You could email talking rubbishpodcastmail.com and all of the links to every way of contacting us can be found in our show notes. Robbie, one of the things I want to do is build a bit of a community, because I think we get to talk to everyone. I get loads of messages in, but it's all quite individualistic. People are messaging me, I'm messaging back and I bring it up on the podcast. But it'd be much better if we were all kind of in our bubble, communicating together. So I've been looking at this over Christmas and I think we're going to launch. Or we. I think we're going to launch a Discord. So Discord is just like a forum, isn't it? A way of, us all talking and communicating. So I'll add that to our show notes this week, have a look at our show notes and there'll be a link in there for our Discord. Join that and you can be part of the discussion.

Robbie Staniforth: Great, I will.

James Piper: Oh, my God. Well, this will be the only way for people to contact you.

Robbie Staniforth: It will be.

James Piper: You're going to engage with.

Robbie Staniforth: I'm going to do it. I don't know what it is quite yet, but I've heard of it and I'm going to join.

James Piper: Guys, that is a reason alone to join, just to be able to annoy Robbie. Let's get on with it. Thank you so much, Robbie. Okay, well, I will definitely put that in our show notes this week, so have a look for that. I'll try and put it near the top. Make sure you join our Discord and then we can all chat about recycling all the time. Rubbish process.

Robbie says it's important to recycle batteries properly

Today we've moved away from electricals. We're going to move into batteries. So batteries is something I'm surprisingly passionate about because actually this was my first job with Thera Sureity. This is the thing we did. I think I've talked about it before. My first job was designing battery recycling buckets, you know, the things you see in supermarkets. So today we thought we might talk about how our batteries collected. And the first thing to say is there are councils that will take them from curbside. So whatever we're about to say, that's your first point of call. It's the easiest way to recycle. Have a look, see if your council collect them and if they do, you don't have to do anything else, you can just put them out. Bristol is actually one of those counsellors. We have lots of listeners in Bristol. So if you're listening in Bristol, you can do that. You just put them in a clear bag, put them out of your normal recycling. they actually go in the black box.

Robbie Staniforth: I believe that's correct, yeah.

James Piper: This is not specific to Bristol. Let's talk about UK legislation, Robbie.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, well, I suppose the first thing to say is it's really important to recycle batteries properly. They're one of those things that they're quite small and people often like incidental and they're seemingly unimportant. But the risk of fire from batteries, particularly lithium ion batteries, which are more prevalent in mobile phones, laptops, et cetera, Ah, and also, you know, things as big as u, you know, scooters and electric bikes, they can cause fires. So we've talked about that and previously, it's really important to make sure you recycle batteries properly. So in 2009 the waste batteries and accumulators regulation came into place. And that is the major reason why people see often in supermarkets, the batteries collection container. And, what it did was those new regulations in 2009 in the UK, they placed a requirement on anyone selling 32 kilos of batteries a year to have a day res designated collection point. So they were forced to do it. And that basically equates to a pack of four AA batteries a day. So even if you do sell just a few batteries, it's very important that you have one of these containers. And that's the thing, James, isn't it, that you were designing for these retailers?

James Piper: Yeah, I joined ecos surety in 2009 when this legislation came out, and need. We needed buckets to put in stores. So as you say, if you sell a pack of four, a day approximately, then you

00:15:00

James Piper: need to have a collection point legally. So that means you as a consumer will know that most shops, certainly shops that sell batteries legally have to have a collection point and certainly you should be able to find that quite easily. they have to take back any type of sealed battery and it's about whether it can be carried. So it needs to be carried without difficulty by the average person. So I guess logically, if you carried it to the shop, then they should be taking it. This includes any battery. So from laptops, watches, torches, cameras, anything like that, they have to take back all those batteries and it's not just about the ones they sell. So if you're in a, like a corner shop and they're saying, oh, well, we only sellble aa aipa a so we're not going to take your laptop battery. that is not correct. Again, like, the electricals direct them to talk in rubbish where they can learn a bit more about this legislation. I have a funny story about batteries collection boxes because I actually went to get my hearing tested in my village, a few months ago.

Robbie Staniforth: Sorry, what was that?

James Piper: That's why I've got these really good headphones because I can't hear anything. Anyway, that's a whole different story. I went to get my hearing tested in the village and they had one of my boxes from 2009. Really couldn't believe it. It looked very shabby. Anyway, watch it.

Nat spotted a box full of recycled batteries on eBay

I was so excited to see this because I don't often see them in the world. Not the old one.

Robbie Staniforth: Ye, for sure. Gosh, 16 years old.

James Piper: I know. They got upgraded to plastic. but for now we started with cardboard and and this really old shabby box full of batteries. And I just said to them, o look, that's one of my, you know, that's one of my pantry boxes. I was too excited and and they said, oh, would you mind, collecting it for it? Would you mind taking it with you to recycle these batteries? I was like, no, you're going to need to call his number to do that. I can't actually. Haven't got waste carrier's licence. I can't drive this home.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, don't get involved with that, James.

James Piper: Call the number on the box. Anyway, so it was very exciting to see one in the worldild. I don't have that very often, not with these boxes. Nowadays shops also have to display posters saying they collect batteries and they have to put it on their website. We actually didn't discuss with electronics, but you have similar required in electronics Shops, you'll often see a post of it says we comply with the Waste Electrical directive. And you'll have similar ones for batteries. And basically the companies that provide the boxes have to collect the batteries for free.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, and it's as simple as that. You know, you. Basically our recommendation is if you can't recycle it, ah, at the curbide, with your local council, then collect up your batteries, take them to the local, generally it's a supermarket, but also it could be more local shops too, and certainly electrical retailers who are selling lots of batteries, take them, then deposit them, into the battery containers provided. And you do see these things all the time, don't you, James? When you're out and about, they're often clear so that you can see inside the bin that it's actually for batteries rather than just putting any old rubbish into them.

James Piper: Trash talk. Robbie, did you know? Well, I mean, you will know, you know, because.

Robbie Staniforth: Well, let's just see if I do know.

James Piper: As far as I know you read the notes in the last half hour or so. did you know there's invisible barcodes on some of our packaging?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, it's crazy, I know.

James Piper: And I've actually, I've got some here.

Robbie Staniforth: Have you?

James Piper: Yeah. That's not in my notes, is it? This is surprise you.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, there we go guys.

James Piper: This is going to be great on social media. It's going to be rubbish in the podcast format. If you're on social media, remember, follow us at Rubbish podcast. I will put up a video at this moment to show you what it looks like. So look, I've got a UV torch.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh yeah.

James Piper: And I've got some co op still mineral water labels. You ready?

Robbie Staniforth: Yep.

James Piper: Okay. how cool is that? So if you're on social media, Nat, look, come up, you can't see it. Nothing there. Bit of UV on it. Whoa.

Robbie Staniforth: We're going to get the conspiracy theorists going now. James, we're go going toa have to explain this thoroughly.

One of the biggest issues with recycling is not knowing whether something is food grade

James Piper: Okay, let's explain what doing arade. So this address is one of the biggest recycling issues. Contamination and sorting. So, as we'talked about in many episodes, one of the issues with recycling is we don't really know whether something has been food grade or non food grade. For example, it's sometimes quite difficult to find out if something's pe, PP or pe. So by putting barcodes all over a piece of packaging, when it gets to the SMURF or the mf, we're going to say murf so much in this section, let's not say smurf. So when it gets to the mrf, which is the sorting facility, we talked about that in episode one, I think.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, I think so.

James Piper: so when it gets to the sorting facility, they want to find out whether something's pet pp, they want to find out whether it was food grade, non food grade. Ideally, you could find out exactly what that packaging was, what it was made of, what it all its component parts are. And you're limited with some of the existing technology. So, near infrared scanning, you're limited on what you can find out. But if you cover it in barcodes and you have a camera that reads that barcode and says,

00:20:00

James Piper: I now know what that thing is, you can build all of that information into it. So there is a bit of a movement towards packaging that's covered in invisible barcodes.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And so these like digital watermarks, they're just as you showed on the video, they can be quite small, but they need to be everywhere. So they can be red, don't they? That's the key thing.

James Piper: Yeah. Once you start crushing and shredding up plastic in a MRF and once you start making it difficult, it's really hard. So we all know that there's one barcode on a product. Right. When you buy something, you've got a barcode, but obviously if you've squashed a bottle up or you've manipulated it in some way, you folded it up or whatever you've done to get it to the mf, by the time it goes through a scanner, the chances of it reading that barcode are very slim. So the best thing to do is cover the whole packaging in barcode. But then obviously you don't want us to see it as consumers because it would be very distracting when you're buying your product. So that's why we've ended up in this situation where the future is definitely these invisible barcodes that we can't see as consumers but the recyclers can read.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. Know it's amazing. And so these, this modern information, things like QR codes, which people will be familiar with now, they're very prevalent, aren't they? according to your research, they can carry 500 times more data, do we think, than a conventional barcode?

James Piper: Yeah, I think so. Although we do need to be a bit careful here because I was doing, I was emailing some people about this, knowing we had this episode coming up. the reason we're doing this episode is because our interview next week is with Alice Racle for PolyTag. And they do exactly this because we want to talk more about invisible barcodes. And she was very clear that actually these aren't QR codes what I just showed youv. These are ah, dot matrix data, something. We'll hear about it next week. so QR codes are, they are just a form of QR codes but they're actually not QR codes that are, that are hidden. It's just something, it can be scann. It's essentially an upgraded barcode. but you're right, you can have way more data on it and that means you can store loads more than just the price which is what a traditional barcode reads. So you can have in there the type of plastic that something is, type of cardard, whatever it is, how much recycled contents in there, whether it's food grade or non food grade. So there's so many options in terms of what you can store on that, on that label.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, and, and covering it in all sorts of covering the whole thing. A whole label means it can get read in any position and you can take that information about that individual thing and then take an action with it. Presumably flick it into a different bin to the next piece that gets read with a slightly different piece of information on it.

James Piper: Exactly. So they're using air jets. So for example, if you had a conveyor belt running with a mix of non food grade and food grade plastic and you wanted to sort the food grade from non food grade, you would have that running along the conveyor belt. A camera would be positioned over the conveyor belt and it would read all the barcodes super fast. So fast. If you watch videos of this stuff it's incredible. So a camera is reading all those barcodes and it's going right, that's a food grade one that's a non food grade. Non food grade might fall off the conveyor belt into a bucket and food grade might get shot off in an air jet into a different bucket. And so you end up with a pile of food grade plastic and a pile of non food grade plastic. And that's all confirmed by the barcode that was the, on the packaging when this has been trialled because they've done lots of trials on this and we'll talk through some of these and how it came about. Ah, tomra which is a company that produces these machines, we're reporting that they were getting 90% plus detection. So this was back in 2019. So this is a real improvement over existing technology which is like your near Infrared, which we talked about before, where you're reading the signature of plastic or just using cameras in general. This is. You're going to get way more detection by having barcodes on there.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And this kind of thing, if you go back to the very old technology, means that a human isn't trying to make a qualitative assessment of what is this piece of packaging, does it look, you know, the same as the last piece? Presumably there's so many more things and examples of where it can be used that say, the average human waste picker couldn't understand or know.

James Piper: Yeah. And it gets over quite a lot of the issues. So we talked about. We've obviously said a few times about food grade, non food grade. But you've also got things like black plastic. We're going to episode 26. So the episode after Alice's interview is going to be on black plastic because there's some really interesting news that has come out about that. So we'll talk about that in a couple of episodes time. But one of the issues with black plastic is how you sort it. This would avoid that because what happens is the near infrared scanners can't read certain types of black plastic. They can't read carbon black. But if you've covered it in a barcode, obviously they can read it. So it avoids those issues. And there was a trial, December 23rd to February 24 I think, where they tested this on flexible plastic and sorting flexible plastic is the biggest issue we have. So the plastic that I showed Robbie, was flexible labels. and so the scam would be able to read that and go, okay, this is a LDP label, let's send it off a recycling.

00:25:00

James Piper: Or this is a pet flexible that we don't want to recycle. So we'll send it off to incineration. U so again, it's a really impressive way of sorting different types of plastic.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, for sure. And I suppose it's one of those things where, it can carry any information that they deem fit. Presumably. U there's all sorts of other things that they could attach to it as well.

James Piper: Yeah, definitely.

The Holy Grail Project aims to improve plastic recycling through digital watermarks

So let's talk about how this came about. So it's a project called the Holy Grail Project, which would be super helpful for me because I'm sure I'll call this episode something like Invisible Barcodes, the Holy Grail of plastic recycling. I'm sure that's what the title will be. So it's called the Holy Grail Project. The initial Project 1.0, as it's known, ran between 2016 and 2019. It was led by the European Brand association, alliance to End Plastic Waste and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. And they basically wanted to create a way of improving post consumer recycling. So they were like, how do we improve recycling? They looked at loads of stuff in Holy Grail 1.0. So some of this stuff, the invisible barcodes, but also things like chemical tracesrs. And their goal was to bring together groups of brands to get this up and running to see if they can make it work. The result of that 2016-2019 work was to realise that invisible barcodes, or digital watermarks, whatever we're calling it, were the best way to go rather than any other form. So then they launched Holy Grail 2.0, which is then taking what. So the work in 1.0 was to find out what to do. They ended up on digital warmarks. 2.0 is then to develop that into something that the consumer actually experiences. And it's just worth noting for digital watermarks to be useful. There's two sides to the coin. There's two things that need to work really well. The first one is it needs to be on loads of products. It's kind of pointless if it's only on one product.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, you're not going to bother installing equipment and things unless it gets stamped on it, presumably when it is manufactured and when it's filled with, whatever product.

James Piper: Exactly. And mean, it's worth saying here, these can be embossed in plastic or they could be printed. So stamped or printed. but yes, that you need to make sure there's a lot of products that this is on for it to be useful. The data that you're getting back. Also, you need cameras in most of the sorting facilities. So again, if you just had it in one sorting facility, it's not particularly helpful. So those are all useful for pilot and trial stuff to prove it works. But in order for this to actually improve sorting and recycling, it has to be on a wide range of products and it has to be in lots of the sorting facilities.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. So in the uk, presumably we've got to get all these biggest brands that we talk about, in food, the like of Don Nestle, png, Mars, all need to be stamping their products with it and then all of the recycling facilities, the bifa, suez, viololia, etc. All need to have these, cameras in their sorting facilities.

James Piper: Exactly. Those names you just mentioned are on Mars, Nestle png, they are all supportive of the Holy Grail project. They're all, they are all members of the project. So they areved. But it's worth saying this Holy Grail project is very. It's not a UK specific project, it's more European. so actually it's kind of a much bigger project than perhaps we're thinking at this point where it's like you might be thinking, it's just uk, it's quite a big project. when we talk to Polytag next week, they are. Are they more focused in the UK with.

Robbie Staniforth: I think so, yeah. So they're trying to solve that problem of how do you get all of the material recycling facilities in the UK to have the capability of the camera? And it's that tricky thing. James, we'll talk to Alice about it next week. Of do the brands do it first or the waste management come companies by? You need them all to do it all at once, which is a lot of money being fed in all at once to change how you mark products and also change how you recycle them. So we'll find out more about that next week.

James Piper: Yeah, that's it.

The Holy Grail project is ongoing now. It's going through three phases

So the Holy Grail project is ongoing now. It's going through three phases. We're into phase three.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

James Piper: So phase one was September 2021, which was prototype development. They were focusing on getting the hardware up and running, testing the sorting of Mar vs Non Mart and they got some really exciting results. So, they were trying to, for example, they had a trial where they were trying to pick out HDPE which is high density polyethylene and polypropylene. And they were looking to leave behind Tetrapac, PET and ldpe. So they had less like a stream of plastic and packaging coming down a convey belt. And they were like, we want to air jet out HDPE and PP, leave behind the other stuff. And in that phase one they were achieving 95% accuracy. So that's really encouraging in terms of how these things work. Phase two, which was January 2022 was kind of the semi industrial testing. So coming out of the lab, putting it into real world conditions, which means you have to assess things like speed, you have to get the conveyor belts running really fast because no one's going to implement this technology if you're not running at the same speed as a usual facility will. they did four months of testing in Copenhagen,

00:30:00

James Piper: which by the way is just reminded me just to going off on a tangent. I know we talked about DRS and we talked about Copenhagen and we said if anyone think Copenhagen, let us know about Drs and we did get lots of messages, so.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, did we?

James Piper: Oh, they will be an addition in the future.

Robbie Staniforth: Lots going on in Copenhagen, clearly.

James Piper: Sorry, that was a tangent. So, they did some testing. COpenhagen, they got 125,000 pieces of packaging across 260 SKUs. And if you're not familiar with the term skew, it just, it's a stock unit basically. So it just means like a bottle of, well, this S Co op mineral still water label that I have in front of me will be a skew and then their sparkling version will be another skew. So, 260 different product types, 125,000 pieces of packaging. And in that real world conditions they achieved 99% detection. So the cameras were picking up 99% of the barcodes, 95% ejection. So 95% of them were going into the right bucket and 95% purity. So again, similar, similar to the ejection numbers. So those results were also seen in a trial in Germany in June 2022. So this is pretty impressive stuff compared to the existing technology that's out there. We're currently in phase three now. They say on their website phase three should have finished by now. But from what I can see, phase three not actually really started. and this is where we're doing real world tests. So rather than just grabbing a load of plastic and putting it on the conveyor belt and testing stuff you already know, you're actually putting products out into the market.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay. And seeing where it reappears and whether it gets red when it goes through the whole recycling process.

James Piper: Yeah. And they appeared to want one MRF2 recyclers in this test and they wanted a number of products in supermarkets. but again. And it was meant to be finished by the end of 2024, but from what I can see, it hasn't really started. And the only thing they've done is that flexible testing that we talked about. And again with that flexible testing they were achieving a 95% detection. So the same as, with rigid plastics, they were getting 95% detection but 85% sorting instead of 95% sorting. So a slightly lower rate in terms of what was successfully being ejected, which is sort of what you would expect, but is incredible compared to hand sorting. Ye. That we're doing at the moment. So, so yeah, I think I'm still waiting to see how that phase three comes out. Still waiting to see the final report. We'll do another episode on this, this episode is just to introduce the concept of our ah, packaging might and sometimes does have invisible barcodes on it and they help sort and recycle that waste and reduce contamination.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, I think this, it feels innately like it's got some legs this whole thing, doesn't it? There has to be a better way to sort than what we're currently doing given the capability of recycling facilities at the moment and these. The use of cameras just seems fairly obvious doesn't it? And if it needs to be in this infrared spectrum so that the marketeers can still package the product up really nicely with colours that don't get interrupted then, then maybe that's the way we need to go.

James Piper: Yeah, absolutely. And so we'll talk obviously we'll talk to Alice next week. She did email me last night because I was asking her what the difference is between kind of what they're doing and what the Holy Grail project is doing. And it seems to me that that that Holy Grail project from what she's saying might be quite locked down as in you have to use their systems, buy their software by their equipment. Whereas what Polytag are doing in Alice. I'm sure we'll talk about this next week is way more open. So they're using an existing standard and open platform so that anyone can use it. So again there's a few different options out there but one of the things we definitely encourage at this space is being really open about how you get those QR cod or data codes, how you put them on the packaging, how you read them, making sure that isn't restricted to one brand or one entity.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, sure. And I think it's one of those things with the barcode labels changing in the future to QR codes so more information can be read. It makes sense that recycling data as part of buying products as part of like the passport for a product is definitely needed. Just yesterday I was shopping with my daughter and you know where you scan the barcod yourself as you go along shopping. you get the little scanner at the, the at the start and you scan as you go. It's a bit quicker. U she didn't quite understand that there we had scanned one and you could just press a quantity two and just pick another one up the, off the shelf. So she didn't understand that, that the barcode was just saying it's this type of product, it's not individually stamped on each one of those products. And this is the kind of Thing that in the future u, we'll be seeing more of that individualization, I suppose, of these products.

James Piper: Yeah. And I, when I was a kid, I had exactly that where I used to think the barcode was what set off the security alarms. As you leave us left you. And it's only as you get older you're like, okay, those barcodes aren't individual, you know. Yeah, no, they're

00:35:00

James Piper: the same across every store. And it's an interesting thing, isn't it? Whereas. Exactly that. And Alice will talk about this next week. I'm sure PolyTag have developed QR codes that are individual to a piece of packaging. So, this isn't linked to this invisible barcode bit. This is more linked to that digital DRS that we talked about last week where you as a consumer could in theory scan a QR code and it would say, okay, you've returned the item, you've put it in the bin for recycling and when we scan that QR code again at the recycling facility, we'll give you your deposit back. And to make that work, every single piece of packaging has to have a unique QR code.

Robbie Staniforth: Cod. Yeah, sure. So that's going a step further than just attaching more information to a product which these digital watermarks are doing. They're sort of telling you the colour, size, shape, material, those kinds of things. It's actually saying this individual item was travelled home, put in a, recycling bin in Bristol, went to a sorting station in Avonmouth, eventually went off to be recycled, potentially abroad.

James Piper: Exactly. And again, this won't be useful for the podcast format and it may not end up on socials, but I've got another label here where you can see the traditional barcode and then a QR code that says scan me before you recycle me. And again, that will be a unique QR code to this product.

Using AI to help brands compete on recycling could reduce greenwashing

But let's talk about that next week because that's not invisible. We would see that as a consumer.

Robbie Staniforth: Sure.

James Piper: So it's kind of not linked to this trash talk. So what do we like about these invisible barcodes? I think one of the things I'm most excited buy with these is we can get brand specific. If Coca Cola, for example, had a invisible barcode on their bottle and Pepsi also had one.

James Piper: The Murph could tell Coca Cola how many Coke bottles they've had that and they could tell Pepsi how many Pepsi bottles and you could do a comparison and say, actually consumers are more likely to recycle a Coke bottle for okay, why Is that. And you could look at the placement of the recycling label. You could look at the communications that Coke put out. So I'm not saying that's a tr. by the way, that's just a hyp hothesis. I'm not saying that's what actually happens between CoC and Pepsi. I'm just saying that's what you could do. Now what's interesting about that is you could really reduce greenwashing. And it's one of my questions for ourless next week actually. Is our brands scared by that? Because you could end up in a position where a brand A has like an 80% recycling rate and Brand B has a 20% recycling rate but their product therefore has an average of like 50%.

Robbie Staniforth: Sure.

James Piper: It should brand A be able to say, well actually ours is 80 and our competitors is 20 or is everyone at 50? So there's this kind of really interesting thing that happens once you start getting into brands specific. And I think it's a huge opportunity to reduce greenwashing. It's a huge opportunity for brands to tell their story and also to work out how to get things back. Because if their product is not being returned but their competitors are, they're doing something wrong in their communication in terms of getting it in the recycling bin. So the more data we have, the better this will be. And I think that's, for me, that's the most exciting thing about these invisible barcodes.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, sure. And brands are set up to be based on competition with one another. So if we're getting truth about recycling, hopefully they will compete with one another and things will improve as a consequence.

James Piper: Yeah, absolutely. And the other amazing thing about it is there's no change to the consumer. You don't have to do anything differently. You just show and buy your products. You don't even know these barcodes air unless you bought one of his UV tortes. you know, and it literally has no impact on us, but it has a huge impact in the recycling infrastructure. It reduces contamination. We could increase food grade recycling. I think it's a big opportunity to exactly say what a piece of packaging is, what it was before and therefore what it could become again. And that is very, very, very exciting.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, it definitely takes things on to a whole other level from how we're operating at the moment with the collection of recycling.

James Piper: Yeah. Now there are alternatives to this. So there is a company called Grey Para who I would also like to get on for an interview in the next certainly this year. So look out for that. because What Grey Parrot are focused on is AI. Now that is a similar thing. They're putting a camera above a conveyor belt. The difference is the camera is working out what a piece of packaging is based on its database so it knows what a Coca Cola bottle looks like and it goes, okay, well that's a Coca Cola bottle. And it can, using AI, it can work out what a scrunched up Coca Cola bottle looks like versus a whole one. And so, so there is an opportunity to go a simpler route which is you don't have to change the packaging at all. And in fact the brands don't even need to be involved. They don't need to print anything, they don't need to do anything differently. You could just use an AI camera to do the same thing. It'll be interesting to hear what Alice thinks about that next week, about what the advantages of printing are, versus just using AI. It'll be interesting to get Greatay Power on to hear their side of that story because I think it's important we get balance

00:40:00

James Piper: between the two. But it is just worth us calling out that there are competing views on this as to what the future could look like.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, agree. And with that, you know, vision learning as they call it, a Grey Parrot, there's others like sorted as well. And thinking back to our days call back to when we were talking about batteries earlier, I remember there was also a place in Wolverhampton that once had a database of pictures of batteries and then was using a camera to reference that database and try pick out say Duracell. AA's a very common battery. And so these things have been around for a while. The question is, is how good is the technology in the wild? And will it really, be accurate enough to make a massive difference? And certainly from these test results of the Holy Grail, I can see that if you've got a digital UV watermark that's all over the thing, it's probably highly likely that a camera is going to be able to see that and do the right thing. Hence these 95% rates that you were talking about earlier. when it comes to reading quite complicated things like mashed up packaging, yes, it might be really easy to read, a common piece of packaging, say the plastic Coke bottle. But when it comes to like some niche brand'yogurt pot, will it be able to read and know what it is? But yeah, interested to find out more.

There are invisible barcodes printed on some products that we're buying

James Piper: So just to wrap this up because we haven't actually, we'll talk about this next week. But this is out there now. This is on your packaging potentially. So, in front of me I have. What do I have? I have an ALW milk wrapper. So I know that Aldi have been using this on their milk wrappers. so. So milk wrapper, milk labels. I went to Audi to try and find some of these by the way, and I couldn't find any. I've had to get these from, from Polytag. So they are location specific. So it's not like every Audi, every milk bottle. But, you know, we'll talk next week to Alice about that. So definitely Audi labels. I've got the CO still water bottle that we talked about. I think those are the two litre bottles. it's on a few different products. There's lots of companies testing this. So next week we'll talk to Alice about where they actually are, these data codes, so what products they're actually on. And we'll talk about how many MRFs they have and what kind of data they're getting. Because this is happening right now, this isn't hypothetical. There are invisible barcodes printed on some of our products that we're buying.

Robbie Staniforth: So after next week are we going to set off our network of talking rubbish enthusiasts with UV tortures to go into their local grocery store and see what tags they can find?

James Piper: Definitely get on that discord, get on that discord to four our army. But certainly at least one person will because this UV torch is going to be our giveaway for next week. So. Yeah, alongside other things that I know Alice has. So if you want to experience this, I'm going toa post somebody all these labels and UV torch. So, if you want a chance to win that, make sure you listen next week, rubbish or not.

Robbie: I always thought train tickets were recyclable

So, Robbie, we had an email from Sonya. Thank you Sonya. Asking about train tickets. So, you know in the UK we have orange train tickets. I'm sure you get different colours but certainly National Rail is orange, isn't it? And quite, distinctive in terms of how it looks. And I'm gon toa confess. We got this in, we got an email saying train tickets and I thought, well, they're definitely recyclable. I'm sure I've talked about this before, I thought about it before and I'm not sure I was right. I was quite surprised to find this out.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, well, it seems like a credit card sized piece of cardboard, so I always thought these recyclable but apparently they're rubbish.

James Piper: Yeah, I reached out to the network to find out Whether these specific types of couple are recyclable. And they talked about the metallic strip on the back because they've got that kind of. In the UK we've got ones that have like a black line on the back and they use that to read the ticket and it's that metallic strip that stops it being recyclable. Unfortunately, they'just go in the rubbish pin. Yeah.

Robbie Staniforth: Can't believe it. I'm literally going to have to change what I'm doing with those tickets if ever I get one.

James Piper: Yeah. And this is probably a good time.

Robbie and I debated whether the Christmas paper hat was recyclable

You know, we talk about rubbish or not errors. Do you want to confess to the Christmas paper hat?

Robbie Staniforth: Not really, no.

James Piper: So loyal listeners will remember our Christmas special where we did Christmas crackers and Robbie and I had a 20 minute debate on whether the paper hat was recyclable or not. I decided it wasn't. Robbie decided it was. We reached out to our friend Joo at Dear Smith and he confirmed it is not recyclable.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, the fibres are too short. This is the reason why you've written a book on the topic and I just pop up as your rubbish friend James.

James Piper: I know, but you said it with such confidence that I sort of went along with you. I was like, okay. We spent 20 minutes debating it, but Robbie does seem very confident and, I knew you were wrong. Anyway, there we are. So, tissue paper. This is a previous one, but just. It's an addition, isn't it? You know, tissue paper, the fibres are too short, very difficult to recycle. And when you think about a paper hat and a Christmas

00:45:00

James Piper: cracker, it's similar to that tissue paper. Very different to cardboard like these train tickets are made of. But the metallic strip renders this as rubbish. Robbie. I once knew a guy called Mark who actually turned his train tickets into business cards. So he bought some stickers with his brand information on and used to stick these little stickers on his old train tickets and used to give them out as business cards. And that was an inspiration for me for talking rubbish. Because when we want people to listen, we do the same thing, don't we? I bought a load of old rail tickets on ebay and I put some stickers on them to promote talking rubbish and we give those out to people. So, a similar thing. And I honestly thought they would be able to be recycled with that little sticker on it. And now I know, but I'm really glad, really glad now that I am reus those train tickets.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, you're reusing Them and you haven't made them, not recyclable by putting the sticker on because they weren't recyc.

James Piper: Well, I wouldn't. Yeah, I think the sticker would have been okay anyway because it was just such a small part of the overall. But, yeah, none of it'recyclable. Of course, nowadays we would suggest that if you're able to, and you don't need to buy your ticket the station, you can buy it online and get TR an e ticket.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: We tend to use apps like the train line, don't we, Robbie, to get e tickets. but I know lots of people do still buy physical tickets, so if you can avoid that, I would be buying your ticket before you get to the station.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, definitely. Saves on paper waste.

James Piper: Rubbish questions. So we had Sarah contact us on the website. Thank you, Sarah. Our website is talkingruubbishpodcast.com and you can message us on there directly. It was another wor one, for Jono at D.S. smith, because, I mean, utilising this relationship, I think. Thank you. Thank you, John O.

Robbie answers questions about paper and cardboard on this week's podcast

You did say, Robbie, you were prepared to answer any question about paper and cardboard now and people have taken up the mantel. We've had lots of messages in about paper and cardboard because I got the backup. Ye, exactly. But Sarah messages us asking about her Advent calendar. So we were coming to the end of Christmas and she had this paper advent calendar which she said was from Germany and it had glitt on it. and we've talked about my hatred of glitter and the fact that if you have like a glitter birthday card, it's quite hard to recycle or you shouldn't recycle it. so I suspect it's similar with the Advent calendar. But, Robbie, what do you think? What's the best way to dispose of a paper advent calendar that has glitter on?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, unfortunately, it's got a big old problem, this one. we don't really like glitter on this podcast for sure. And so rather than making a mess of it, I'm going toa do John O proud and read it out verbatim. Unfortunately, whether standard glitter or biodegradable glitter, it's all damaging to the equipment at the paper mill. It can bypass screens and philtres and end up in the finished paper. Even a tiny amount can lead to a rejection of tonnes of paper. If it's metallic, it ends up in the packaging for food. It may get caught by their metal detectors and lead to whole batches of food getting recalled or rejected. Too. So all in all, potentially damaging to equipment and potentially expensive recyclers for recyclers, paperkers and customers. So unfortunately it's rubbish.

James Piper: Yeah, so that's why this is a rubbish question, not a rubbish or not because we're talking about the whole of glitter Sosoute had, my brother in law was over Christmas saying, oh, I bought some biodegradable glitter. Aren't you proud of me? And I was like, o sorry. He'snn hear on the podcast that I'm not because it is just a disaster. So yeah, don't buy glitter, don't buy things with glitter in if you can avoid it. That's amazing. it's certainly not something I'm going to introduce my son to. but if, if you're buying products, try and avoid any products that have glitter on because you just can't recycle them.

Robbie Staniforth: Honestly, the stuff gets everywhere as well. I just hate it in general, regardless of the recycling bit. It's just little bits of dust that go all over the place. So, yeah, unfortunately my daughter doesn't get hold of the stuff ever.

James Piper: Right, there we go. Thank you. Another episode.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, that was great. I'm excited to get back to it. For 2025 we've done better on time.

James Piper: I've noticed that we've been edging towards the hour and I've been desperately trying to pull us back and we've got so much to talk about. Robbie. I'm really happy that this one's come in a bit less than where we were getting to a Christmas. I think with Christmas we managed to edge up to like 59 minutes and I've committed to all of these being less than an hour. But I think we need to be trying for our target of like 45 to 50 minutes.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, very good. We're not going to do a 20 minute outro now then?

We're Rubbish podcast will be setting up a discord to chat rubbish

James Piper: Well, we might. Let's see what we can now let's wrap it up. So as always, if you want to contact us, We're Rubbish podcast on social media. I would urge you to follow us. If you want to see me scan that plastic packaging. It's pretty cool, that invisible barade.

Robbie Staniforth: Exciting stuff guys. Get on there.

James Piper: It's pretty good, isn't it? And as I said, we will be setting up a discord which. Or we have set up a discord which is a way for us all to chat rubbish all the time. chat rubbish. That's not very on brand, is it? It's a way for us all to talk rubbish all the time using this discord. So, again, that'll be top of our show notes. If you want to join that, that would be awesome. And we can use that as a way to all communicate. And it's definitely a way to contact Robbie, which is super exciting. in other ways. You can email us@talkingrubishpodcastgmail.com

00:50:00

James Piper: Visit our website, talkingrubishpodcast.com and everything that we're talking about will be in our show notes. So just have a look at that if you want any of those links. Thank you so much for listening to us. I'm sure loads of you have reviewed on Apple so that I've beaten Robie, but S. Spify.

Robbie Staniforth: Spotify. Spotify.

James Piper: Mu. Mu. Mute. We'll just mute that. All right, thank you so much, everyone, and we'll see you next week. Bye.

00:50:24