Digimarc expands pilot program to France

Digimarc Corp., Beaverton, Oregon, is expanding its Digital Watermarks Initiative HolyGrail 2.0 to France. With successful semi-industrial trials, Digimarc says the initiative’s stakeholders have selected France as the European pilot market for Digimarc Recycle.

Digimarc says HolyGrail 2.0 technology is being tested for detection, ejection and purity at industrial level in three testing facilities in France and Germany. France will serve as a pilot market for Digimarc Recycle, providing stakeholders with real-life data on the value creation potential of digital watermarks for sorting packaging materials.

In March 2022, the HolyGrail 2.0 project announced results from its European trials showed that Digimarc’s technology achieved a 99 percent average detection rate across all tested categories of plastic packaging.

The effectiveness of Digimarc Recycle also has been validated in Canada with a 99 percent detection rate in a pilot with the Circular Plastics Taskforce (CPT). CPT plans to implement Digimarc Recycle in Canadian facilities this year to enable the separation of flexibles by attributes, allowing the creation of new end markets.

“As the semi-industrial trials clearly demonstrated last year, digital watermarking technology has the power to transform recycling,” says Digimarc CEO Riley McCormack. “We could not be more thrilled to support our partners in France as they progress in their journey to achieving a more circular economy.”

According to Digimarc, France was chosen as a pilot market for several reasons, including ambitious legislative recycling objectives in that nation and big French organizations involved in HolyGrail 2.0 since the start of the project. Additionally, Digimarc says it has received support from Citeo, a French producer responsibility organization.

McCormack says Digimarc can help to support companies with innovation needed to comply with regulations such as the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation in the European Union on the horizon.