Pellenc ST co-organized the second edition of Impack’t Day alongside GS1 in Europe, with the participation of Citeo and Alliance to End Plastic Waste, and with Polytag Limited as technology partner. The event brought together around 60 stakeholders from across the waste and recycling value chain, including operators, industry experts, PROs, institutions, brand owners and retailers.

The edition focused on the emergence of invisible barcode technologies applied to the traceability and industrial sorting of household packaging waste. By enabling more precise identification and separation of materials, these technologies open new recycling pathways, improving circularity for flexible packaging and selected rigid applications.

“Invisible barcodes represent a breakthrough in how we can track and sort packaging at scale. But innovation alone is not enough - collaboration and standardization will be the real enablers of circularity,” said Florent Gras, Plastic Segment Director at Pellenc ST.

A key theme throughout the discussions was the importance of open standards to ensure scalability, interoperability and industry-wide adoption.

“For these technologies to deliver their full potential, we need alignment across the value chain. Open and interoperable standards are essential to ensure that sorting systems, packaging design and recycling infrastructures can work seamlessly together,” said Stéphane Cren, Head of Innovation at GS1 France.

Throughout the day, participants had the opportunity to:

🔹 Experience live demonstrations under industrial waste sorting conditions

🔹 Gain insights into the current state of the art from both technical and operational perspectives

🔹 Explore new recycling pathways enabled by granular sorting for rigid and flexible packaging

🔹 Participate in collaborative workshops with experts and industry leaders

“We believe invisible barcodes can become a foundational layer of the circular economy - connecting packaging, sorting and recycling through data,” said William Addy, COO at Polytag.

The workshop sessions further highlighted the importance of shared frameworks and open approaches to support deployment across markets.

“The industry is moving from R&D to pilots. Recycling capacity and recyclate incorporation needs to drastically increase to meet tomorrow’s requirements,” said Laurent Bastida, Director of Studies and Experimentation at Citeo.

“Flexible plastics are essential to modern life and are also hard to recycle. It requires coordinated action across the value chain to advance circularity,” added Franz van Rijckevorsel, Senior Advisor at Alliance to End Plastic Waste.