Aldi and Arla launch UV tagging pilot to track milk bottle recycling
Aldi UK and Arla started a UV tagging pilot with Polytag on August 3, 2026, using invisible fluorescent labels to track milk bottle recycling.
Photo by Kai-Chieh Chan on Pexels
Aldi UK and dairy cooperative Arla have started a new pilot with recycling traceability company Polytag that prints invisible UV fluorescent tags onto milk bottles to track them through the recycling system, Polytag announced on August 3, 2026. The pilot applies wrap-around labels carrying the UV tags to Arla’s milk bottle range at Arla’s Oakthorpe production site, building on an earlier 2023 collaboration between the three companies that used simpler pressure-sensitive labels.
The tags are printed using a food-safe fluorescent ink supplied by Sun Chemical’s Specialty Inks & Coatings division and applied by label printer Saica Flex using standard production methods, so the process does not slow manufacturing lines. Polytag describes the rollout as the first commercial use of Sun Chemical’s fluorescent ink together with its own detection technology, according to Stefaan D’hoore, Sun Chemical’s director of business development for Specialty Inks & Coatings.
How the UV tagging recycling pilot works
The UV tags are invisible to the naked eye and only become detectable under ultraviolet light. Once tagged bottles enter the recycling stream, Polytag’s Plastic Detection Units, installed at materials recovery facilities (MRFs), read the barcode-level data on each bottle in real time and send it to a Polytag dashboard. That gives Aldi and Arla visibility into how many of their bottles are actually being captured for recycling and where in the process they are identified, rather than relying on estimated national recycling rates.
Sun Chemical said the ink has been tested against the RecyClass Washing Quick Test Procedures and the European PET Bottle Platform’s Quicktest QT 507 “with good results,” and that it does not affect the quality of the recycled polymer once bottles are reprocessed. The detection units are ink-agnostic, meaning they can read the new fluorescent tags without hardware changes at the MRF.
| Party | Role in the pilot |
|---|---|
| Aldi UK | Retailer selling the tagged milk bottles |
| Arla (Arla Foods UK) | Dairy cooperative producing and bottling the milk at its Oakthorpe site |
| Polytag | Recycling traceability technology provider; operates detection units and dashboard |
| Sun Chemical | Supplies the food-safe fluorescent UV ink |
| Saica Flex | Prints the wrap-around labels carrying the UV tags |
Source: Polytag, “Aldi and Arla introduce smart packaging to milk bottles to track recycling using Polytag’s UV tags,” August 3, 2026 (updated August 6, 2026).
Luke Emery, plastics and packaging director at Aldi UK, and Helena Delgado Nordmann, head of sustainability at Arla Foods UK, both backed the pilot as a way to gain data on the lifecycle of dairy packaging. Polytag chief executive Alice Rackley said the technology is intended to help brands measure progress against their own sustainability targets. None of the companies published a specific numeric recycling-rate target or bottle volume for this pilot, and Polytag did not disclose a set end date for the trial; one trade report cited an approximate eight-week timeframe, but that figure does not appear in Polytag’s own release and should be treated as unconfirmed.
Polytag pointed to a separate, unrelated result as evidence of its detection technology’s reliability: the company said it recently reached a 100 percent detection rate working with French packaging compliance body Citeo at one of Europe’s busiest MRFs in France, a figure reported by Polytag itself and not independently verified for this article. Winssolutions.org has previously covered circular economy measures for packaging materials, including a report noting that circular economy policies often overlook bio-based materials.
About Polytag
Polytag is a UK-based recycling traceability company that develops tagging and detection technology to track packaging through the recycling system. The company’s Plastic Detection Units are installed at materials recovery facilities to identify tagged items in real time, and it has run trials with Aldi UK and Arla since 2023, moving from pressure-sensitive labels to the wrap-around UV tags used in the current pilot. Polytag also publishes a white paper, “EPR That Works: Incentivising Real Recycling with Data and Innovation,” supported by Ecosurety, Valpak, Waitrose, M&S and Ocado Retail, arguing that recycling data should inform extended producer responsibility policy. The Aldi and Arla milk bottle pilot extends that approach to a new label format, with Polytag chief executive Alice Rackley framing the wider goal as giving brands the visibility they need to act on sustainability commitments rather than rely on estimates.
Sources: Polytag; Packaging Insights; Circular Economy News
Featured image: photo by Kai-Chieh Chan on Pexels (free Pexels license).
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I specialize in sustainability education, curriculum co-creation, and early-stage project strategy. At WINSS, I craft articles on sustainability, transformative AI, and related topics. When I’m not writing, you’ll find me chasing the perfect sushi roll, exploring cities around the globe, or unwinding with my dog Puffy — the world’s most loyal sidekick.
