Larry Logan
Chief Evangelist,
Sustainability Solutions
Dr. Tomáš Filler
Senior Manager for R&D
Digital Watermarks in Plastics:
An Approach to overcome Today's Challenges in Recycling
Session 1B - Innovations in Blow Molding
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
2:40 - 3;10 p.m.
(see full conference schedule)
Presentation Description:
The issue of plastic waste in the environment is a driving force behind new government regulations, particularly in the European Union, and increasingly vocal consumer sentiment. New quotas demand ever-more quantities of post-consumer recycled content to be mixed into new products, with manufacturers fearful of the looing gaps in supply. However, today's sortation technology for plastics and other waste items is insufficient to address these challenges and cannot deliver the quality and quantity of recyclate that will be required.
Digital watermarking – a means to create an imperceptible digital identifier – is seen as a potential solution and backed by significant industry research and support. With digital watermarking, plastic objects become ‘internet-of-things,’ connected to the cloud and with virtually unlimited attributes associated with the object. Recycling facilities can more accurately identify objects down to the specific item level, manufacturer, whether used for food vs. non-food packaging, the various layers of a multi-layer package, whether recyclable vs. compostable – or any other desired attribute. The technology overcomes issues with detecting carbon-black, metallic foils, and other hard-to-sort materials. Unlike the inclusion of RFID / NFC tags or the use of chemical tracers, there are no additional contaminants added, and the ‘signal’ of the watermark is generated merely from the existing plastic substrate itself.
Speaker Biographies:
Larry Logan is the Chief Evangelist for Sustainability Solutions at Digimarc Corporation, a pioneer and world leader in digitalization of products. The company’s technology creates an imperceptible digital identity in virtually any media or physical object, in essence giving it a Digital Product Passport linked to unparalleled product transparency attributes and data. Larry has played a leading role in the company’s efforts to create an industry-wide solution for the sortation of plastics and other waste objects through the HolyGrail 1 & 2.0 initiatives in the European Union. By giving each object its own unique identity that can be discovered by scanning equipment in a recycling facility, industry will seek to achieve increased quality and quantity of yields of recyclates to meet the sustainability targets of manufacturers, dual systems and facility operators, and government agencies. And, as importantly, to enable consumers to engage with packaging objects through their smartphones and to be directed to proper disposal based on their location or waste service provider. Among his industry awards and recognition, The World Brand Congress has named Larry among the 100 Most Influential Global Marketing Leaders. In his previous career in Hollywood, he was the recipient of over 75 Gold and Platinum records in entertainment industry marketing campaigns.
Dr. Tomáš Filler enjoys more than 15 years of professional experience in various research and development roles bringing innovation to life. In his current role as the Senior Research and Development Manager at Digimarc Corporation, Dr. Filler works with world-leading brands and plastic converters on introducing digital watermarks into their plastic packaging. Digimarc is the technology provider of the HolyGrail 2.0 project to create digitally watermarked packaging that will address the existing challenges in the sortation and recycling of plastics and other waste items. The goal of this cross-value collaboration, with more than 160 participating companies, is to increase the quality and quantity of post-consumer recycled content that can be integrated into new packaging. Dr. Filler serves as Digimarc’s representative to HolyGrail’s Work Package 3, “Digital Watermarks for Molds,” an extensive study of the application of watermarks with various substrates and molding techniques. He also serves as Digimarc’s advisor to manufacturers of optical waste sorting machines on the integration of Digimarc technology for improved sortation of all product materials.