Aldi and Arla pilot UV-tagging to track milk bottle recycling

Aldi and Arla are conducting an operational pilot to improve the traceability of milk bottle packaging through the recycling process. Building on a 2023 collaboration, the project utilizes Polytag’s UV-tagging technology to track materials in real-time.

The pilot involves applying UV-tagged wrap-around labels to Arla’s milk bottles at its Oakthorpe site. These labels are printed by Saica Flex using Sun Chemical’s food-safe fluorescent ink. The use of wrap-around labels in this phase aims to increase durability and coverage compared to previous pressure-sensitive label trials.

As tagged packaging enters recycling streams, specialist units installed at Materials Recovery Facilities capture barcode-level data. This information is provided to participating companies via a dashboard, allowing them to gain insights into the material lifecycle and make data-driven decisions to improve recycling rates and packaging circularity.