Case Study
Using AI-powered vision to recover valuable food-grade polypropylene

A pathway to increase supply of a high-demand material

The Challenge

Polypropylene is one of the most commonly used plastics in food packaging today: look underneath a yogurt pot, milk jug or soda fountain cup and there’s a good chance it is labeled as PP. And as environmental regulations and sustainability commitments from brands increase the demand for recycled food-grade polypropylene, many manufacturers are finding there just isn’t enough supply to meet the market need. One solution to the shortfall is to recover more of this material from existing recycling streams — but not enough is known about how much of the polypropylene in recycling streams can be repurposed for use with food. To answer this question, we teamed up with Greyparrot, an AI-powered waste analytics platform, to uncover what is in a typical polypropylene recycling stream and how much of it could be repurposed as food-grade material.

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45M

items of plastic packaging identified during the study

3

months of material recovery tests in the field 

>75%

of polypropylene identified as clear or white material, suitable for food grade

4

materials recovery facilities participated in the study over three months 

The Solution

We launched a study at four materials recycling facilities in the U.S. to conduct an unprecedented examination of the polypropylene packaging that is recovered every day at similar locations across the country. Using AI-powered optical technology that identifies and categorizes packaging running through the recycling stream, we examined over 45 million items during a three-month period in the field, representing over 650 tons of material. The results highlighted the significant potential to recover valuable materials: over three-quarters of the polypropylene passing though the recycling facilities was identified as clear and white polypropylene packaging, most of which was categorized as food-grade.

“This work provides important data and transparency around the performance of AI technology and its capabilities within MRFs.”

— Gaspard Duthilleul, COO of Greyparrot

Impact

The Closed Loop Center team published the findings in an expansive report, offering businesses and policymakers insight into the huge potential to capture more food-grade polypropylene to better meet the rising demand for this recycled material. Insight from the study is being used by businesses seeking to comply with new environmental policy such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations and California’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (SB 54).

The project has garnered significant media coverage, including from Packaging Dive, Packaging Europe, Recycling Today, Recycling Product News and Resource Recycling.

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Our Role

Research

  • Design and implementation of field tests
  • Analysis of recovered materials
  • Validation of data sets

Design

  • Leverage AI to demonstrate data capture at MRFs

Build

  • Publication of groundbreaking research

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Download and read the full report

Download
Download

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We are  part of Closed Loop Partners—which includes the largest privately held recycling company in the U.S. and one of the largest circular economy capital management groups in the world—we’re uniquely positioned to bring research, design, and real-world implementation together.