In the third episode of OMV’s podcast series “Rethinking Resources”, the hosts and journalists Steve Chaid and Julie McCarthy are joined by Gian De Belder from Procter & Gambleto discuss the Holy Grail project, one of the most exciting and ambitious initiatives to revolutionize plastic packaging.
In the third episode of OMV’s podcast series “Rethinking Resources”, the hosts and journalists Steve Chaid and Julie McCarthy are joined by Gian De Belder (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gian-de-belder-220ba9/) from Procter & Gamble to discuss the Holy Grail project, one of the most exciting and ambitious initiatives to revolutionize plastic packaging. This project is driven by the European Brands Association and powered by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. Holy Grail promises to truly close the loop by using a smart system to put a special invisible marker on plastics and other types of packaging at the point of production. These any many other things will be discussed in this episode.
More about “The Holy Grail 2.0”: https://www.digitalwatermarks.eu/
More about OMV: https://www.omv.com/en/about-us
OMV Blog: How digital watermarks can help raise plastics recycling rates
Steve Chaid Hello everybody. Welcome to the Rethinking Resources podcast brought to you by OMV.
Julie McCarthy: We are your hosts, Julie McCarthy.
Steve Chaid And I'm Steve Chaid.
Julie McCarthySteve and I are two independent radio journalists who'll be taking you inside the biggest challenges we're facing in the climate change transformation.
Steve ChaidOur topic this first season is the circular economy, a hugely exciting concept, full of promise.
Julie McCarthyYes, indeed. The circular economy aims to close the loop, so to say by using and reusing resources more efficiently and eliminating waste. New solutions are being created to eliminate waste, to increase efficiencies and also reach climate goals.
Steve Chaid In this episode, we will be telling you about the Holy Grail project, one of the most exciting and ambitious initiatives to revolutionize plastic packaging. This project is driven by the European Brands Association and powered by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. Holy Grail promises to truly close the loop by using a smart system to put a special invisible marker on plastics and other types of packaging at the point of production.
Julie McCarthyAnd this marker means that plastic packaging won't end up littering our landscapes, clogging our waterways, or being incinerated because it can be identified in the waste disposal system - sorted, recycled, and reused.
Steve Chaid To tell us about the Holy Grail project, we are joined now by Gian De Belder. Gian is packaging expert at Procter & Gamble and project leader for Holy Grail. Gian, thanks for joining us.
Gian De Belder Thank you very much for inviting me to this podcast on Circular Economies.
Julie McCarthy Thank you so much for joining us from my part too, Gian today. Now, you've led a coalition of companies in search of the Holy Grail. It started out as a handful of companies initially, and now 170 plus companies are on board making this happen. Tell us a bit about what lies behind Holy Grail and what it promises to deliver.
Gian De Belder Yes. So, Holy Grail is the solution the globe needs for better recycling of your empty packages. For a too long time, people have been frustrated by seeing pictures and movies of garbage floating in our oceans and rivers impacting wildlife. There is a solution to it, but it requires a full value chain, including you as listeners to this podcast to collaborate. Let me explain in a bit more detail. Brand owners and retailers, basically the producers of your daily products have to design their packages so that they can be recycled. This is even the case for reusable and refillable packages that one day have to be recycled as well. Then we heavily rely on governments to ensure there is a waste infrastructure in place, including separate collection of empty packages. In most European member states, such systems do exist. Think about the collection bin system in Germany and Austria. Next to that, we also rely on you, the consumer, to ensure he or she is doing the right thing when the product is being consumed. That is to place it into the right collection bin. By all means, we have to prevent that consumers would litter their packs, as this contributes even more to the global waste crisis. I fully understand that sometimes placing empty packs, being either plastic paper, aluminum or even compostables in the right bin is a very difficult task. We need to work on better sorting instructions for consumers, and that's the first help that Holy Grail can provide. The second help is in the sorting centers when the yellow bins are being collected at your doorsteps by waste trucks and sent to such sorting centers. Their job is to sort on different material types. Holy Grail definitely can improve current systems in place. And last but not least, we need to close circles. And that's once more the job of brands and retailers, but also from recyclers that receives assorted materials from the previous step and produce new materials out of them that brands and retailers then use again in their packages. This allows to make new packages out of recycled materials. If you go shopping next time, you will see, some of our brands already have high loading of recycled materials, such as even up to 100%. So, I'm just going to show quickly two examples. So what you see here is a transparent dish, (???) bottle. And the bottle itself already contains 100% recycled materials. The second example I'm showcasing here is a white Pantene bottle, shampoo bottle. And also this package already contains 100%. So, I think these are two proofs that really showcase that you can actually load packages with only recycled materials.
Steve Chaid Gian, I wanted to ask you about the big remaining bottlenecks in the system. It's clear that consumer behavior needs to evolve, but don't waste collection systems on a massive scale need to be onboard to really make this work?
Gian De Belder That's, that's correct statement. So indeed, I mean the two big bottlenecks to do bring us to a much higher recycling rates especially for plastics but also for other materials are twofold. So indeed, as you mentioned, the consumer needs to act. If the consumer is just putting their empty packages in their standard waste bins, we're never going to find them back in sorting centers and they never will be sent to a recycler. So that's definitely a big one. And it's again our job to better educate the consumer and potentially provide incentives to do so. So that's the first big bottleneck. And then the second big bottleneck is indeed to improve the system of sorting. I have seen way too many bad examples where packages have been correctly designed, but because the sorting equipment is not fully developed, those packages unfortunately were sent into the wrong stream and also would end up as waste, eventually being incinerated at all. And so the big focus of Holy Grail is really to focus on that second bottleneck. It's really to drastically improve and revolutionize sorting and come up with a better system versus the current standard one.
Julie McCarthy So we're pretty, we're pretty far with it already then. So it's a, it's close, it's, it's at our fingertips so to say.
Steve Chaid Yeah, sounds like we're right on the threshold of it being rolled out in a, in a big way. Gian, let's talk about how it actually works. Holy Grail involves the use of this this digital watermark that is invisible to the human eye. So packaging and products appear normal to the human eye. But when these things are disposed of, then one of the biggest problems in sorting and recycling becomes a lot easier to solve. This is where the real magic happens. Explain how it works with this invisible watermark.
Gian De Belder That's fully correct, Steve. So in essence, we make the package indeed intelligent by the implementation of the so-called digital watermarks, which are basically very tiny codes the size of a of a post stamp. So the way we are doing this, think about a kind of a Photoshop manipulation of the, of the artwork of the label, for example, onto your your bottle. You bring in small dots in certain areas which the human eye can't see. And as an example, again, I'm just going to show you again the same package that I also already have been sharing. So the Ariel flexible packages. Now what we would be doing here is that I'm using the existing white ink, which you can see on the bottom of the package. And I put small white dots in the green area here and vice versa. I use the existing green and I put very small green dots in that white area. Right. So the whole surface of this package would contain codes which you and I can't see, but which can be easily captured by simple cameras as a one on people's smartphones as an example. And we do exactly the same in in a sorting center. We are just then using much more sophisticated cameras, right. And so that's really the magic behind the behind the technology. So this is this is definitely focusing on, you know, on the sorting bit. But as I explained before, this intelligence now also can be used by by you, the consumer, because sometimes if you're traveling, you always, you're not always knowing where to place your empty packages. Right? So if I go on holidays, Corsica or wherever it's going to be, I have no idea how to sort my empty bottles. Now, my mobile phone knows where I'm located. The app actually can link it to the local sorting instructions, so whenever I would scan my intelligent packaging, the app will tell me: Please put me in that certain collection bin, that color or whatever it's going to be. So this is also making use of the intelligence that we are bringing in with these type of digital watermarks. So as I said before, this is really the solution for better recycling of of your empty packages.
Steve Chaid So Holy Grail picks you up at all points on the value chain, so the consumer can find out where they need to dispose of the packaging. And then once it gets into the sorting process, the even more specialized cameras pick it up and sort it. At that point, you just held up this this this package that would be similar to a box I would see on a shelf if I went into a supermarket. Can you demonstrate, do you have an app on your phone that allows your phone to react to it? What actually happens if I am on vacation in Corsica or somewhere else, or if I go shopping here where I'm located in Vienna? If I go into a store and I point my smartphone at a package, what actually happens?
Gian De BelderYes. Thanks for the question. So indeed, let me give you a very quick demonstration, and I hope the viewers actually can can see it also here on my screen. So I'm just holding-
Steve Chaid If they're not watching, I’ll narrate a little bit. So now you're holding up what would look like the flat surface of a box of detergent.
Gian De Belder Correct.
Steve Chaid Okay. So you hold that now, if you point your smartphone at it, activating the camera.
Gian De Belder Open the the app, you see that there is a signal registered so it can read.
Steve Chaid Okay. So your phone immediately reacted to you, put the camera on it, and then I saw that something happened on the screen. What was that?
Gian De Belder Correct. So it's picking up the signal and then the brand owners and retailers actually then can direct it to a certain website, for example. So in this case, I'm being directed to the German Ariel website where you can get more information about this product, but also you can then obviously link it with local sorting instructions, right? So, we just made that package intelligent and by just pointing your phone into that intelligent packaging, it's picking up the signal. And then we can program whatever we want to, to, to program in there. Right. So sorting instructions is definitely a big one because we have been seeing so many different sorting instructions for different countries that it's really becoming very messy. I'm living in a very small country called Belgium. We typically are getting quite a lot of products coming out of France and in a lot of cases actually I'm getting French sorting instructions on my pack, which are totally irrelevant for Belgium, right. So, by digitizing, we we do hope that it's going to facilitate the job for consumers and bring in less confusion for him.
Steve Chaid And let me pick up on that. Julie has a question too. But so, if it is a Holy Grail project, if it has the invisible watermark and the cameras detect it, that means it prevents that product from being sorted incorrectly. It stays in the loop, it doesn't get incinerated, it doesn't end up someplace it shouldn't be. It's in the closed loop and can then be recycled and re-utilized.
Gian De Belder That's fully correct, Steve. Yes.
Julie McCarthy It's fascinating and very innovative, of course, but it doesn't let us off the hook, does it? As consumers, we still need to take the packaging and bring it somewhere to a specific place. Think about it in order for it to end up being in the right place, in order for it to be then reused, recycled, etc.
Gian De Belder That's that's also a correct statement. So it's all about closing the circles, right. So the first thing that needs to happen is indeed having the right consumer action. If you have your bottles and you just put them in your classical waste bin. Well, those bottles will be incinerated, right? Hopefully with with some energy recovery. Certain countries are still using, unfortunately, landfill as well. But it's all indeed about the action from the consumer to put it in the right bins. If you put it in the right bins, then chances are very high that it's going to get correctly sorted and obviously also then being sent to a recycler which then will treat it and make new useful resources out of it. I think the classical example is, is which is already in place on a big scale, I would say, is the example of your classical soda bottles. Your PET-bottles, water bottles, soda bottles, whatever it is. There's quite a lot of collection in place already in Europe. The numbers are very high in terms of collection in Belgium, we are collecting 91%, I believe, of all of those water bottles. Again, very similar - if I put it in my collection bin, it's picked up by the waste truck. It's being sent to a sorting center. They are then sorting on material, so all of the bottles will go into a bale. It's being sent to a recycler and he's making basically new PET material out of it, which we call that post-consumer recycled material, which we then can use to be placing back into our bottles.
Steve Chaid Now we come to the big problem. So we've talked about how it can work, how it should work. Let's talk about the problems of what what's likely to prevent it from working. So what are the big remaining bottlenecks? We know that if consumer behavior does evolve, people are putting things in the right place. Great. But waste collection systems on a massive scale need to be on board to make this really work. There's certainly going to be packaging that's a lot more difficult to deal with. Where are the big problems? How will they be overcome?
Gian De Belder Yes. It all comes back to the first bullet points I've been mentioning, right. So again, yes, all of our governments have implemented systems like collection schemes and so forth. But unfortunately, it's not harmonized. So if you travel from one country to another, it's it's it's very confusing for consumers. And sometimes even within the same country, there's another collection scheme in place. And so there is definitely work that needs to happen by by governments trying to harmonize it even even better, especially between countries, even thinking about similar building colors for all over Europe. Right. So if you then travel within Europe, at least you know that the yellow bin is always bin that you should use for plastic items as an example, right. Harmonization of sorting instructions, instructions as a fort, also very important. But as I mentioned as well, the two big bottlenecks today to increase recycling rates of any type of material, including plastics. It's basically twofold. The first one is really: we are not collecting enough material in the bins, right? So there is definitely a shortage on the amount of collected items. If I look on the average numbers for Europe, 66% of the PET bottles. So you saw the bottles again are being collected. It looks like a high number, but it's not, right. So there is much more effort that needs to be done in order to close the circles, because everyone would like to load those bottles with 100% PCR and it's only going to happen whenever we have, you know, more material at hand. Some of the recycling plants currently are running on the lower capacities that they actually can handle, simply because there is not enough material for them. So bottleneck number one is definitely convince consumers even by maybe in the future incentives to collect more materials into their collection bin. The second-
Steve Chaid That’s an important point. Let me, let me - I'm sorry to interrupt you between your first and second points - I just wanted to highlight something because I've heard people within the plastics industry specifically say plastic is too valuable to throw away. The problem was, it was so difficult to collect and sort and recycle up until now, but Holy Grail goes a long step towards solving that problem. I just wanted to interject that. Please, go on with your second point.
Gian De Belder No, thanks. I mean, it's it's it's right. So I think as I said, I mean, yes, we we have to rely on those consumers, but we also need to make it much easier for the consumer, right. And again, by scanning it and by, you know, making it digital, that consumers know what to do with, because that's where the confusion comes. I mean, that is definitely the first biggest bottleneck. The other big bottleneck then is indeed sorting. And I've seen and have been very frustrated in the past that whenever you are designing products correctly, products that are then definitely can be recycled, there's quite a lot of things that are going wrong during that sorting step. That was one of the reasons, the frustration, my personal frustrations on some of our products that were perfectly designed for recyclability, but then ended up unfortunately also in the rest fraction because of the wrong sorting. Right. That's that was the passion, at least for me, to start this program back in 2016 and started investigating what are the different ways we can improve sorting by making that package more intelligent. So that basically was the work we started under the new plastics economy from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which eventually is now indeed involving in the Holy Grail 2.0, the initiative which is driven by European Brands Association and powered by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. So those are really two big bottlenecks that hopefully through Holy Grail we we can correct.
Julie McCarthy So you mentioned there, Gian that quite a high percentage of, for instance, plastic bottles, the PET bottles so to say, are being recycled. But overall today, it's only a very small fraction actually of plastic packaging that is being recycled. What will be made possible by Holy Grail? Like what amounts are we talking about here? What efficiencies are we really talking about?
Gian De Belder Yes, thanks, Julie, for the question. Indeed, I mean I've mentioned the the data on PET bottles, and PET bottles are seen in the world as being the best collected and recycled material. 66% collection, probably recycling rates of only 30%. Right? Global numbers, right, 30. If I look to the European average numbers for for recycling of plastic packaging, we are currently roughly around 42% that are being recycled in Europe. But obviously the European Commission has put quite some ambitious new targets. So that number needs to go to 50% by 2025 and 55% by 2030. So urgent action is needed, right? Assets, I mean, 66% for PET, the highest number. I don't have the real numbers on other packaging formats, but indeed it's true that certain packaging formats are suffering big time from recycling and some of them are even not recycled. So it's all about, you know, get them into the collection schemes, because not all of the packaging formats - think about film packages - not all of them are already accepted in collection schemes. Not all of them are sorted and sent to recycle. So that's really the urgent action that we need to do. Now, to your question, yes, we have been making an estimation what Holy Grail truly can bring. And the best estimate that we can provide today is that roughly 2500 kilotons per year extra recycled material could be placed into the market in Europe, which is really a massive, massive number, right. I think we all have seen that a lot of the brands and retailers, but also governments are putting out there quite a lot of pledges, commitments to put recycled materials into the into their packages. And there is simply not enough today. So the more we can actually save from being either incinerated or being sent to landfills, the better. And I said 2500 kilotons extra per year is a massive number and we hope we can achieve that one to to with Holy Grail.
Julie McCarthy 2500 kilotons. Okay, I'm trying to picture that number. It's not easy. It sounds like a massive amount, obviously. But if you look at the big picture, how does that really contribute to the circular economy and actually reaching climate goals in general?
Gian De Belder Yeah. So I think I mean, if you look at that picture, it's it's probably again, I should make the calculations, but it's probably reflecting something like 20% additional capacity for Europe. So it's it's a pretty high number. The other thing is that the current recycling capacities in Europe, they also take into account what I would call open loop recycling. Right. So you have certain items, you send it and it's ending up in a another application. I think the the trick for circular economies, it's it's really all about closing the loops, right? So the best example is, again, that soda bottle going back into a soda bottle. But what we also would like to develop with Holy Grail is to create markets, for example, from a detergent bottle to a detergent bottle, from a cosmetic haircare bottle to another cosmetic haircare bottle, from a feminine hygiene application into another feminine hygiene application. Right? So it's all about closing loops and that really can create a big impact for the circular economy in general.
Steve Chaid Gian, you touched on this earlier, but let's let's highlight it and make it really clear. This goes way beyond plastic packaging, right? This invisible watermarking technology can be used on on any kind of packaging from paper to multi-layer containers, even textiles, I imagine. So give us some examples of of all of the possibilities.
Gian De Belder Yeah, indeed. The focus currently for us is obviously on home packaging. That's already a challenge enough, I would say. It's a already big challenge as you've heard, it's very complex. The waste industry is very complex and all of the you know, the value chain players involved. It's a big amount of people. So our key focus is indeed on packaging. That being said, you can easily reapply it on automotive items, PVC windows, artificial flooring, potentially textiles and others. But let's first prove that it works on packaging. You rightly said indeed that it's more than plastics in the testing in Copenhagen. We have been testing quite a lot of different materials, including paper based items, including liquid carton boards and others. So yes, for the time being, the national test markets, we are just going to focus on plastics, liquid carton, liquid carton board, sorry. And then also some of the paper packages, all of which really need to have a better granularity on on sorting. Now I said, I mean, it also can be reapplied onto other packaging materials or outside of packaging. But we really first would like to prove and focus on those items that currently are suffering from low recycling numbers and really pump up those type of numbers by implementing this type of technology.
Steve Chaid Gian, a very important thing I wanted to come back to was the cost. You mentioned this earlier. With all these significant investments required for watermarking technology, for the very specific and high-tech cameras that are involved, perfecting the sorting step, the big question, who's paying for this all? Investment is required upfront. But does this mean consumers are going to pay for it at checkout or will the cost be shared all along the value chain?
Gian De Belder Yep. Very good question. So I think as mentioned, I mean, for the time being, we're still in a kind of an R&D program. So all of the the initiative itself is, as I mentioned, driven by EM and financed by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. So in terms of the costs to prove that technology we are fully financed. Then indeed, if we go longer term, if we have a look longer term, there are basically two different parties that that need to invest. On the one hand, you have the brand owners and retailers. It's all about paying a licensing cost to use to use this digital watermark technology. But I said there are potentials for us then to compensate those type of costs by lower extended producer responsibility fees, as an example, right? I think this is something we are not gonna reflect on on the consumers, don't see any reason why we should be doing this. Because there are other values for us as lower EPR offerings, but also having more access to high quality recycled streams that we can put back into into the package itself. So that's the first one.
Steve Chaid Wait,we're on the verge of something super exciting here. This is, so if if things can be collected and sorted and recycled properly, are we now into a level where it pays for itself?
Gian De Belder That's what we are targeting for, yes. But obviously it's coming with a lot of ifs, ifs ifs, as usual in sustainability or “It depends”, right? That's that's the other thing that you will hear quite a lot if you're asking questions. But I think the technology should be implemented at a cost-neutral position for consumers. So I don't I don't see any reasons why consumers should pay more for that.
Julie McCarthy Absolutely. What I want to know is when will I be able to go into a shop, into a store here in Vienna where we live and find this digital watermark on a product?
Gian De BelderGood question. So, I didn't mentioned Austria yet as being part of the national test markets, but what I can tell you is that certain of the products that we as P&G are putting in the German market actually do share their artwork, their labels also with Austria. So the examples I've shown on these Ariel pots also already are in the Austrian market and will have the watermark already in there, right. But again, I think we all have to move all of the brand owners and retailers have to move into that technology before we can ask consumers really to start scanning packages, right. So either we all move together and we can convince consumers to start scanning. Because again, I mean, one of the disadvantages here is that consumers can't see it. If I just put there a QR code and consumers, thanks to COVID, everyone takes his phone and starts scanning a QR code these days. But in this case, it's even invisible to consumers. And so I don't think we should start asking them to try and scan certain packages. We first need to have a critical mass in place because otherwise he's just going to scan and can be very disappointed that certain articles do have them already and others don't have them, right. So it's just going to take somewhat more time to to start with the consumer engagement phase, I believe. Yes.
Steve Chaid Gian,let's stay with the look of the packaging, because the invisibility of this digital watermark is so important. We really can't underestimate how important it is for global brands to be immediately recognizable. Right? You know, they invest millions in these iconic looks for certain packages. So you can't come out with something new that changes the look of the of the packaging. So this invisible watermark doesn't interfere with the normal look of the product and makes it all possible.
Gian De Belder That's correct, Steve. So again, I'm working in one of the biggest marketing companies and obviously there's always some tension if I'm as an R&D person, am asking to change something on the artwork as you can imagine. Right.
Steve Chaid It's unthinkable to take an, iconic product, some product. I mean, as a consumer, we're used to seeing things on the shelf. But yeah, you know exactly what is behind that. And if you're in R&D and go and say: Oh, we want to change this. Go ahead.
Gian De BelderYes. So, yeah, to to come back to the previous discussion. So imagine that I'm asking my marketeers to put like 20 QR codes on a pack just for the recycling, right. That they're never going to buy into that one, right. Because I'm completely, I’m destroying their artwork. So indeed, market marketeers and designers like to keep their brand equity. So it's very important to implement this intelligent technology without disturbing the look of the package, right, or the brand equity. So again, what what you see here and I just will describe it again for the people that are listening to the podcast is a refill system for shampoos. And as you can see, the brand equity, it's it's blue and white mainly, right? So imagine if I'm coming now with an announcement strategy where this pouch itself would become more yellowish. A marketer or a designer never will accept that. So it's very important indeed to hide the coding systems so that there is no impact for the consumer whatsoever.
Steve Chaid Point taken. Yeah, it's really phenomenal. You know, you hold up a package like that and and I'm thinking, hmm. Product for me. Julie's thinking, product for her. Maybe, maybe not.
Julie McCarthy Absolutely. And, you know, products, they they they rely on the immediate recognizability of the colors that are used and obviously the logos that they look exactly a certain way, the way that we're all used to it. Because suddenly people are going to start thinking, oh, that's it's a fake. Or now it doesn't look like that usually. Why does it look different suddenly? And people don't tend to like that too much. We all know that. Another question now. It's very impressive that formerly fierce competitors are actually cooperating now to make this work. How did you manage to recruit support from your former adversaries?
Gian De BelderExcellent question again. Indeed. I think if we would have tried this one back in 2014, it never would have worked, right? Because I think that moment in time, all of the companies were very closed. We were not supposed to be working with direct competitors and so forth. And look at this initiative, I mean 170, as I mentioned, 52 brand owners and retailers. And I think the majority, the main competitors of of P&G are actually now in the initiative. Now, it's my my belief that circular economy only can work at scale if we all work together, including your competitors, right. So I think, again, this is a nice example where we would like to revolutionize the waste sector and it's only going to work when when we are all working together on a very similar agenda, right? It's all about designing where we would like to go as an industry and trying to align what is really the best technology that will get us there.
Steve Chaid Gian, the name Holy Grail is a very big promise. Dramatic name, cool name, by the way, good marketing.
Julie McCarthy Are we're going to talk about the Monty Python film now?
Steve Chaid Yeah, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Of course, there's a more serious intention behind the name Holy Grail. Ultimately, this is the promise of eternal youth sustenance, infinite abundance. So assuming you're able to close the loop with Holy Grail, how long can plastics, how long can packaging be eternally recycled and reused?
Gian De BelderIt really depends on the recycling processes being used, right. So what we currently have in the market are really more the classical mechanical recycling processes which are in place for plastics and fibers. And what's really the challenge on those ones is that they always would come with some kind of degradation of the material. So, for example, if you take a paper package, you probably can just recycle it three, three times or so. So over time, there's always a kind of of of degradation. And it's exactly the same for for plastics, although you can live with somewhat more cycles now. As we've mentioned, there are some new innovative recycling processes being developed, being put into markets and hopefully put it into industrial productions as well, such as the chemical recycling process we have been describing. And this really allows you to recycle endlessly, right? Because during the process, the contaminants which are present are typically completely removed. And so you end up with complete virgin type of materials, which you can use forever and forever.
Julie McCarthy Well, I'm going to play devil's advocate now for a minute, though, because this whole program basically assumes that plastics can never be removed completely from the equation. Are there no viable alternatives, though, like, I don’t know, packaging made from organic materials that would be biodegradable, for instance?
Gian De BelderYeah, I think, very good question once more. We always need to think and apply lifecycle thinking. Whenever we choose a material to make a package and ensure the package then and the material choice meets the first objective of protecting the contents, right. That's the most impactful also if you think about an LCA for a specific product. So we don't want to move into packages that for example, is not protecting any more food. If the food this is is wasted, it has a huge impact. Obviously a much bigger CO2 impact on the globe versus packaging. Packaging is actually a very small contributor to a lifecycle assessment, but it's obviously very, very feasible, unfortunately, with all of the waste crisis movies and pictures we have seen lately on television. So, I think the strategy is the first thing we need to do is to eliminate packs that we we don't need, right. We also would need to correct the business model more on reusing and refilling packages. And you see quite a lot of efforts. I just have shown the the Head & Shoulders refill pack. But again, you can expect much more in this area to come. And then the third item is obviously to recycle better our our packages is very, very critical. And this is true for all different packaging materials, whether we are talking plastics, paper-based aluminum, whatever it is right. Now, the alternative is, as you mentioned, composable. Let me also talk a little bit about about those funds. Right, so I think if we first stay within the plastics area, what we could do to improve the footprint is first using a lot of recycled materials, as we previously described, so we can go up to 100% on the bottle and also also in caps and others, you'll see an increase in recycled materials as such. We also can think about making plastics out of renewable feedstocks. So not necessarily oil or gas, can also be made out of sugarcane and other feedstock, right. So that also can be used for for plastics. You also could decide to move out of plastics, totally move out of plastics and go, for example, to fiber-based materials. So paper based, carton carbon based and so forth, if it makes sense. But we always try to let us guide by lifecycle analysis in terms of the material choice. Coming back to your last points on biodegradable, I really can tell you that I really am not in favor of using these type of materials. I have been seeing many, many false promises that things would degrade whenever you put them on the beach or even in the oceans. And it's definitely not the right material for the majority of applications. Because, again, once you are degrading your material, you're losing your useful resources, right. And in a lot of cases, even if people would claim something is industrial compostable, it's not going to compost fully in the industrial installations. The reason being is that the throughput is such an industrial composting science is, for example, 2 hours where in standard conditions people claim that something will degrade in 48 hours, right. So it's it's a partial degradation. It's not really going to solve the waste crisis in such. So, in essence, I'm not a big fan. There might be some very limited amount of applications in developed countries, but I think it's really very, very limited and therefore I think there are better material choices than versus just degradable materials.
Julie McCarthy But realistically, there is no real alternative at the moment and we're not likely to see the back of plastic anytime soon. And once again, it comes back to us as an we need to get better and how we make, how we use, how we dispose of and how we reuse plastics. That's basically what it comes down to, right?
Gian De Belder That's correct, Julie. So I think, in essence, everyone is allergic against plastic waste. And we we should be, right. There's not necessarily a problem with with plastics as such. And I think that's where we need to make the differentiation. And indeed, again, once more, a wakeup call for for the listeners. I mean, please do put the items into the right bins and please do not litter, because if you start littering, indeed we end up in more waste and plastic crisis than what we already have seen so far. So, I think in Europe, as I mentioned, I mean, there are enough infrastructures in place and we always can can do better, right. I mean, in the past, you typically would only have collection bins at your house more and more. You also see it in companies, you see it in public areas, parks, but also airports, train stations and so forth. So we all have to work hand in hand together. Governments needs to foresee the infrastructures. Consumers need to, you know, to do the right thing, put it in the right bin, and then the recycling process will be taken care of by the waste managers themselves. So again, in Europe, the only thing we can do is to collect and put more in the right bins. Obviously in other regions like Southeast Asia, there is definitely more work to do specifically to foresee infrastructure. I think that's one of the big missing pieces over there because today, indeed, a lot of the consumers over there just put everything on the ground or in the rivers, will float into the oceans. And that's typically the pictures of these floating waste islands that we tend to see on television. But again, if you can correct that one by implementing the right infrastructure, then also we can stop the tap on that one as well.
Julie McCarthy Well, I am, I want to know, though, a little bit more specifically from you now, when when this is all going to happen. So if we're looking towards the future, what can we say is going to be the case in five year’s time, ten year’s time, 20 year’s time? So what's the big vision of Holy Grail in the end?
Gian De BelderVery good question. So I think it's it's very difficult to give you an outlook of the next 10 to 20 years. I mean, there is so much going on in the waste industry with, you know, the producers of plastics. They're all waiting to invest in chemical recycling. They're all waiting for the legislation to be in place. So, again, it's it's difficult to give you an outlook on how the industry will will evolve. But it's my belief that, as I was mentioning, I mean, good sorting is really necessary for all of the upcoming processes, unless someone was developing a new process that doesn't require pre-sorting or feedstock control, which I haven't seen so far. In the short term, as mentioned, the national test markets, Denmark, Germany, France will start after the summer. It's likely going to take us one year, one year and a half to fully finalize this program. And then we're out of of Holy Grail 2.0, as we call it. And then it's really time for adoption at scale. Right. Guess what? We are already working on the adoption together with our funding partner, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, to making sure that whenever everything has been proven that we are again not going to waste another year to convince the others, right. So that's that's really all being done in in parallel. So the big vision is really, truly to get out of of improper waste management and conserve all of our precious resources. So recycle much more than materials versus today's numbers and closing loops as as I was mentioning already before. So the actions obviously have to be taken now. I mean, there's quite a lot of ambitious targets being placed by by governments, by companies, by NGOs. And we we can't simply recycle our way out of this this waste problem. So if you're just going to wait and sit, I mean, obviously nothing is going to happen. So I really do hope that I have convinced the listeners of this podcast about the importance of putting their materials in the right collection bins. And obviously, please do not litter these useful resources. We can easily find and use them as secondary materials in new packaging products.
Julie McCarthy Well, you certainly convinced me even further. I'm going to have to go and process and recycle and reuse all of this information in my brain. Fascinating stuff. Gian, thank you so much for sharing this information with us today.
Gian De Belder More than welcome.
Steve Chaid Thank you from me as well, Gian. And to all our listeners, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode. And again, if you listen to the podcast and want to watch the conversation with Gian, head over to OMV's YouTube channel. Or if you have feedback or questions, please write us an email to podcast@omv.com. Once again, that is podcast@omv.com. We would love to hear from you. Also check out the shownotes for links, for more background material and cool information on Holy Grail.
Julie McCarthy So that's it from us. Thank you so much for joining us to Gian and to our listeners and we hope you're going to do it again. So join us for the next episode of Rethinking Resources.