Aldi and Arla launch UV‑tag trial on UK milk bottles to track recycling

Aldi and dairy cooperative Arla have begun an eight‑week pilot with recycling‑technology firm Polytag to attach invisible UV‑fluorescent tags to the wrap‑around labels of Arla milk bottles sold in the United Kingdom. The tags are printed with a special ink that can be read by Polytag’s detection units installed at material‑recovery facilities, allowing real‑time data on each bottle’s journey through the recycling stream. The data, linked to each bottle’s barcode, will be displayed on Polytag’s dashboard for the partners to analyse packaging recovery rates and inform future circular‑economy decisions. Both companies say the trial aims to improve packaging traceability and support their broader sustainability strategies.

Aldi’s plastics and packaging director Luke Emery described the initiative as “an exciting step forward in how we use data to drive our sustainability strategy,” while Arla’s head of sustainability Helena Delgado Nordmann added that the insight will help the cooperative “make more informed decisions about future packaging developments and improve packaging circularity.”