Dow and Google's X team up to recycle soft plastics with AI
Dow, a leader in chemicals and materials science, and X, Google’s innovation lab known as the Moonshot Factory, are partnering to enhance the recycling of difficult-to-recycle plastics like films and flexibles. These materials, crucial for protecting perishable goods, are often made from mixed plastics and materials, making them hard to sort and recycle.
The collaboration combines Dow's materials science expertise with Google’s advanced AI and machine learning technologies. According to Han Zhang, Global Sustainability Director at Dow, the goal is to make plastic processing in recycling centers more efficient.
Google’s X has been working on its "Moonshot for Circularity" initiative, creating a comprehensive database to catalog plastics in packaging using chemistry, AI, and Google’s computational power. This data enables industrial-scale plastic identification and sorting. The new partnership aims to extend this approach to films and flexibles, leveraging Dow’s producer and recycler role.
The companies have already shown they can use machine vision tools to accurately identify film and flexible components and predict material composition percentages in packaging. This innovation promises to improve the recycling rates of these materials significantly.
