Polytag collaborates with digital DRS company to boost recycling in the UK

15 Apr 2024 --- Recycling technology firm Polytag is partnering with non-profit company DDRS Alliance to accelerate the development and adoption of a digital deposit return scheme (DDRS) in the UK. The collaborators aim to leverage learnings from previous trials to develop a global blueprint for DDRS, intending to deliver a viable solution in the UK and other major European countries.

“Deposit Return Schemes have demonstrated across Europe that consumers respond to a financial incentive to return drink containers for recycling,” says Duncan Midwood, co-founder of DDRS Alliance.

“DDRS brings the solution to the modern day by providing consumers with a more convenient solution mirroring their lifestyles. DDRS Alliance is uniquely positioned to coordinate the development of Digital DRS, ensuring tech companies like Polytag can deliver their solutions within a well-defined and standardized framework.”

The non-profit explains that DDRS is an emerging approach that uses product digitalization to facilitate “a more effective and future-proofed solution at lower financial and carbon cost than conventional DRS.”

Better tech?
DDRS Alliance and Polytag utilize GS1 Digital Link QR codes to facilitate a DDRS. GS1 forecasts that brands will replace traditional product barcodes with 2D smart QR codes from 2027.

The QR codes can be used to increase supply chain visibility, authenticate products for retailers and extend the label for consumers through additional features and benefits designed to engage consumers with dynamic content and engage through loyalty and reward schemes.

“Countries across Europe, like Serbia and Spain, are already seeing and reaping the benefits of digitally supported recycling systems. It is high time that more nations, including the UK, do the same,” comments Alice Rackley, CEO of Polytag.

“Our collaboration with DDRS Alliance will ensure we can strengthen our position and continue demonstrating why a digital scheme will be better for brands, retailers, government, consumers and the environment. We will integrate our scalable, practical and above all, ready-to-deploy solution into existing infrastructure across the UK and further afield.”

Rackley says the “biggest and only challenge” is waiting for the government to finalize legislation.Trials and upgrades
Polytag ran a “world-first” DDRS trial in the UK in collaboration with Ocado Retail, boasting an 87% return rate for consumers who engaged with on-pack QR codes. The scheme gave the online retailer real-time insights into where, when, and how much of its 2 L and 4 L HDPE milk bottles were recycled. The company also tracked packaging from the point of label manufacture to the recycling center at the barcode level.

Additionally, DDRS Alliance rolled out a 16-week DDRS trial in the Welsh town of Brecon in 2023. The “Scan Recycle Reward” trial demonstrated that consumers prefer various return options DDRS offers, including curbside returns. The alliance details that 1,500 users returned 19,000 containers, 58% of which were returned via curbside collections.

DDRS Alliance is currently planning a follow-up urban trial which will feature Polytag’s tech running alongside that already proven in the Brecon trial.

“For the first time, the public demonstrated a clear preference for having a choice of home-, community- and retail-based return options,” says DDRS Alliance.

Midwood previously told Packaging Insights that DDRS “promises to deliver higher return rates and be more impactful in changing consumer habits than a conventional DRS. It is enabled through more return points at more convenient locations and smartphone technology.”

Meanwhile, we spoke to Polytag’s CEO earlier this year, who said, “the recycling industry has taken the liberty of driving the DDRS, a way of managing and collecting single-use plastic with the help, convenience and cost-savings from 21st-century mobile and app-based technologies.”

“Our biggest and only challenge is waiting. We are waiting for the government to show it is open to innovation, to finalize legislation and to give consumers the choice of using a scheme that is fit for purpose for the 21st century,” said Rackley.

By Radhika Sikaria

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