Tech firm helping Waitrose to monitor its plastic recycling

WAITROSE is partnering with Deeside-based recycling technology venture Polytag on a pioneering scheme to monitor plastic recycling.

- SION BARRY Business editor

The retailer has become the first high street supermarket to roll-out invisible recycling tags at scale, adding them to plastic packaging on the majority of its own-label fresh milk range. There are also plans to add the tags to additional major product ranges.

The supermarket’s £100,000 investment in detection units at two of the UK’s largest and most AI-advanced recycling facilities will enable Waitrose to capture data that not just proves the scale of recycling, but helps to inform future decision making about packaging design.

The units will detect the invisible tags when the packaging passes through them, and have capacity to detect tags from other schemes and retailers going forward, creating potential for cross-industry collaboration.