新技术：隐形条形码，能大大提高塑料回收效率

Today, when you recycle a plastic container, it goes to a material recovery facility, where it must be identified and sorted.

现在回收塑料瓶时会送到材料回收设施那里，必须要进行识别和分类。

Facilities typically rely on imprecise older technology to try to figure out materials in a particular piece of waste. Workers standing next to conveyor belts as packages whiz by can catch others.

回收设施通常依靠不精确的旧技术试着找出一块废料中的可回收材料。包裹在传送带上飞速而过，工人站在旁边抓住。

But by embedding a microscopic change in a pattern of pixels—called an invisible bar code—on the label, software can instantly identify the package so it can be sorted and recycled correctly.

但通过对商标的像素模式进行轻微改动，也被称为隐形条码，软件就能立刻识别出这个包裹，准确进行分类回收。

Several of the world’s largest brands, including PepsiCo, Nestle, and P&G, have spent the last two years collaborating with Digimarc, the company that developed the technology.

在过去两年，百事可乐、雀巢和宝洁等全球大品牌与开发这种技术的Digimarc公司进行了合作。

Working with recyclers, retailers, and recycling machine manufacturers to test the system, the project aims to target one of the reasons that many plastic packages end up in landfills.

该项目和回收公司、零售商以及回收设备制造商合作测试该系统，目的是要弄清楚为什么很多塑料包装最终进入了垃圾填埋场。

“Obviously, there isn’t one silver bullet solution to the plastic issue,” says Sander Defruyt, who leads the New Plastics Economy initiative at the noNPRofit Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which initially brought the companies together when the project began.

非营利性组织艾伦·麦克阿瑟基金会“新塑料经济”倡议的发起人Sander Defruyt说：“显然解决塑料问题没有万全之策”，在项目开始之初就是艾伦·麦克阿瑟基金会把各公司召集到一起的。

“We need to start by eliminating the plastic we don’t need. We need a lot of innovation shifting from single-use to reuse business models. But recycling is still one part of the problem, and [brands] realize that to make recycling work, we need to improve the way plastic waste is sorted in sorting centers.”

“我们要从消除不需要的塑料开始，需要有创新的方式将商业模式从一次性转变为重复使用。但回收仍然是一个问题，‘各大品牌’意识到为了更有效地回收，我们需要在分类中心改进塑料垃圾分类的方式。”

By sorting more accurately, the final bales of material are more valuable, and the total amount of material that can be recycled increases.

通过更准确地分类，回收过程最后获得的材料会更有价值，能被回收的材料总数才会增加。

The system can identify whether a bottle was used for food or something like shampoo—a crucial step that current systems can’t accomplish but is necessary for food companies that want to buy recycled plastic to reuse in new packaging, as European regulations prohibit them from using recycled plastic that was originally for something other than food.

该系统能识别一个瓶子是装过食品还是装过洗发水一类的东西，这是目前系统无法完成的关键一步，对于想要购买再生塑料制成新包装的食品公司来说也是很有必要的，因为欧洲法规禁止他们使用原本用于食品以外的其他用途的再生塑料。