Avery Dennison and TripleR have teamed up with Aquinos Group to tag its bedding materials via the atma.io connected product cloud, ensuring their digital identifiability and management in a bid to align with EU Digital Product Passport (DPP) rules.
From 2024, Aquinos Group will tag its products with digital ID technology powered by atma.io. This involves the creation of a ‘digital twin’ with precise product information, which can then be used to share information about their origins and material composition across the circularity chain.
Going forward, the companies envision that RFID tags on the product will be scanned at recycling centres; this will inform product dismantlers about the materials used and, it is hoped, enable effective and efficient separation between recycling streams.
Consumers will also be encouraged to scan a QR code with their smartphones to unlock in-depth product information, both before and after their purchase. The companies anticipate that it will help buyers make more informed decisions with their spending.
It is expected that Aquinos – which oversees brands such as BEKA, Lattoflex, Swissflex, Schlaraffia, Sembella, and Superba – will have tagged one million items by the time the DPP scheme for mattresses comes into force. In this scenario, it would be the first producer to comply with the scheme across the European Union.
“DPP sets the next important step in circularity,” says Benjamin Marien, international commercial director at Aquinos Bedding. “By being the first in the industry to begin compliance we want to lead by example to inspire the markets, our industry partners, and the bedding sector overall to advance environmentally responsible business practices.
“As the brand owner of some of the leading European bedding brands, we will use the power of the brands to raise external awareness of the importance of DPPs. With TripleR and Avery Dennison, we are moving bedding sustainability beyond niche implementation to mainstream, and this will be crucial to put an end to bedding materials going to waste.”
Stefaan Cognie, co-founder, TripleR, continues: “This project is an important milestone and sets a benchmark for how the DPP scheme will operate across Europe to enable sustainability and circularity.
“We have already developed a digital Identification standard in the bedding industry in Belgium and are engaging with extended producer responsibility (EPR) bodies and mattress associations in different European countries, as well as with the overarching European Mattress Association EBIA to bring DPP compliance to fruition.”
“We are proud to be working on this project with Aquinos and TripleR,” adds Michael Goller, senior director for atma.io at Avery Dennison. “Mattresses are complex and bulky products that require a highly sophisticated sorting and dismantling process.
“To date, it has proven difficult to do this in a cost-efficient manner - leading to millions of mattresses going to landfill each year. This is precisely why DPPs have been established and we are excited to push boundaries with our partners towards greater traceability, efficiency, and circularity.”
The news comes after Burton Snowboards became the first customer to use Avery Dennison’s Digital Product Passport as a Service (DPPaaS), which was launched in October 2023.
Around the same time, Packaging Europe spoke to Lee Metters, group business development director at Domino Printing Sciences, about the upcoming implementation of Digital Product Passports, what it means for business, and what can be done to prepare for it.
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