BEAVERTON, Ore. — Most of us want to recycle. But knowing what can and cannot go into your recycling bin can be a bit of a pain.
A Beaverton company is in the midst of revolutionizing plastic recycling.
The company is called Digimarc.
Right now when you throw plastics into your recycling bin, many end up in a processing facility where people have to sort which ones go where.
But what if sorting plastics was done by a scanner that automatically sent different plastics into the right spots.
Bruce Davis, Digimarc’s CEO, showed us how his company is able to do this using something we can't even see. It’s an invisible bar code that repeats itself all over a plastic package.
A mobile app on your phone, pointed anywhere at the package, reveals, among other things, instructions on how to recycle it.
Those invisible bar codes can also be read at recycling facilities, making sorting plastics much easier. As an item moves along the belt, software easily scans those bar codes, and then automatically sends the plastic into the right spot.
“With Digimarc’s bar code in the plastic mold itself we can instruct the system to send this one way and this the other way, so when they come out of the waste facility, they're in bundles which can be sold for reuse,” explained Davis.
In addition to helping sort plastics, the Digimarc bar code utilizes augmented reality to not only help inform consumers but also entertain them.
“It can entertain, it can educate, inform, help sorting machines sort more effectively,” said Davis. “There's many things that it does.”
And it is already doing those things.
Walmart is using the bar codes in some of its packaging. And Proctor and Gamble just announced it will be using Digimarc technology in its products in Europe.