"Digitalization will significantly change today's circular economy," according to Naemi Denz, the Managing Director of the Waste Treatment and Recycling Association in the German Engineering Federation (VDMA). Denz says that digitally transmitted information, for example, will ensure that secondary raw materials can be designed with even greater precision. This topic will be among many at IFAT 2020, set for Germany in May, 2020.

"In the future, the composition of the input material will be analyzed in real time and the treatment process will be controlled by the output," says Denz. "For mechanical and plant engineering this means that the trend moves away from pure mechanical treatment. Measuring and analysis devices will be used more commonly, as are automation components."

Using digital watermarks for sorting packaging

One current example of this new approach is the Holy Grail project of the association Petcore Europe: over the past three years, 29 well-known companies from the consumer goods and recycling industries have made efforts to use digital watermarks to create a better basis for sorting plastic packaging. These watermarks—i.e. codes invisible to the human eye—were printed on labels, sleeves, films, bags and bottles. Specific scanners can then read them and thus give information on the packagings' material and whether they contained food, cosmetics or detergents. According to Petcore Europe, existing sorting systems can be easily upgraded with such a scanner. The next step currently planned is to test the new technology on a production line and on an industrial scale.

Intelligent injection molding machines and robotic disassembly

Digitalization also can enable further process innovations: for example, digitally supported injection molding machines that react to material fluctuations and thus process recycled plastics better than before. Robotic systems equipped with artificial intelligence would be able to accelerate and improve dismantling or waste separation. And given the current high transaction costs, new digital market and logistics platforms could help to match supply and demand even more easily.