Funding boost for ‘invisible barcode’ plastics sorting project

A government-backed project aimed at making it easier to sort and separate plastic packaging for recycling, using an ‘invisible barcode’ made from metal oxides, has been boosted with £772,000 in funding. Plastic Packaging Recycling using Intelligent Separation technologies for Materials (PRISM) aims to identify new luminescent materials which can be applied, invisibly, to labels on plastic packaging to aid the sorting process in recycling facilities.