Steinert is a finalist in this year’s Sustainability Awards with its AI-based sorting programme for separating post-consumer PET food trays from other PET packaging, nominated in the Driving the Circular Economy category. We asked Sascha Fiedler, marketing manager at Steinert, to tell us more about this entry.
You’re a finalist in the Sustainability Awards 2026. Congratulations! To start off, could you summarize your entry in less than 50 words?
Our Cirrec Showcase shows that food-safe recycling of post-consumer PET trays is possible at industrial scale. With Steinert’s AI-based sorting programme, food trays are separated from very similar non-food PET packaging. This enables, for the first time, real tray-to-tray recycling back into food packaging.
Why do you think the judges were impressed with your entry? Tell us about what is innovative about your project and/or about its impact on packaging sustainability.
This is not only a concept. Many companies speak about circularity. Our customer is already using the technology at industrial scale and in international markets. The impact is clear: more PET trays can become food packaging again.
Finally, can you tell us about the ongoing development of your project, e.g. how your innovation/initiative has been received by the industry, or what the next steps are in commercialization/product development?
We continue. More companies, more countries, more material back into recycling. We also use the same AI approach for other sorting tasks which were not possible before. The goal is practical: make more packaging recycling loops.
The winners of this year’s Sustainability Awards are due to be announced on the 11th November at the Sustainable Packaging Summit, taking place from the 10th-12th November in Utrecht, Netherlands. The Summit mobilizes leaders of the FMCG value chain, policymakers, NGOs, recyclers and investors to collaborate, remove barriers and identify opportunities on the road to sustainable transformation.
To learn more or register, visit: https://www.packagingsummit.earth
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