Waitrose has extended its tie up with recycling Technology company Polytag into a nationwide scheme to monitor plastic recycling.
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 £100k investment in detection units at two of the UK’s largest and most AI-advanced recycling facilities will enable Waitrose to capture data that proves the scale of recycling and helps to inform future decision-making about packaging design.
The supermarket announced a trial of the technology with Polytag in April.
Polytag said the technology had the capacity to detect tags from other schemes and retailers, and it hoped eventually it could lead to cross-industry collaboration.
The data will also be used to help Waitrose and the UK governments in England and Wales understand how customers are managing plastic and recycling.
“We know that many Waitrose customers are committed to recycling, and with Polytag’s invisible tag solution we can start monitoring the recycling of our packaging at scale using real-time data,” said Denise Mathieson, head of packaging innovation and programme delivery at Waitrose.
“Improving recycling and protecting resources requires collaboration, and we will be discussing with the UK government how this data can be used to positively incentivise industry action.”
Alice Rackley, CEO of Polytag, added: “Having barcode-level data is a fundamental starting point to benchmark and improve recycling performance over time – what gets measured gets managed.
“The ambitions that Waitrose has for the Polytag solution are super exciting, and the whole team at Polytag is feeling energised by Waitrose’s vision and commitment to have an intentional positive impact on UK recycling performance.”
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