Challenges and Solutions for Plastic Packaging in a Circular Economy

New regulations require improvement of plastic packaging waste management to meet higher recycling rates. One solution for today's multilayers and other sorting challenges is tracer‐based‐sorting (TBS). TBS uses fluorescent tracers to provide sorting information on packagings. Industrial printing tests with tracer materials showed good printing quality. For TBS waste management feasibility studies, extensive packaging sorting plant input analyses were carried out, focusing on materials, color, label type, and label whereabouts. Sorting tests on a TBS‐modified NIR‐sorter resulted in excellent detection rates. LCA showed the reduced climate impact of TBS compared to conventional sorting technology. Implementation and transfer of TBS to other industries show high potential. Tracer‐Based‐Sorting is a proposed solution to meet the current challenges in the waste management. A Germany‐wide lightweight packaging analysis with 248 households resulted in 21,380 items or 207 kg was carried out to gain information about materials, colors, and label‐types about the waste stream.