IN Brief:
- AIMPLAS leads the VERSO project with ITC Packaging and RECICLAMÁS, with regional and European funding.
- Planned work covers validation of reusable packaging and pilot implementation of digital product passport models.
- The project uses a Safe and Sustainable by Design assessment and does not yet report completed industrial trials.
AIMPLAS is leading a Spanish research project that will develop and validate reusable plastic packaging systems while testing ways to apply digital product passports across the packaging lifecycle. The VERSO programme involves packaging producer ITC Packaging and recycling specialist RECICLAMÁS, with support from the Valencian Institute of Competitiveness and Innovation and the European Regional Development Fund.
Building on AIMPLAS’s earlier OASIS work on circular packaging and recycling, VERSO will move reusable formats through design and pilot assessment. Its planned outputs include technical evaluations of material and pack configurations alongside a trial of digital product passport functions. No validated commercial return scheme or completed industrial installation has been identified. The research must first establish whether proposed formats withstand repeated handling, cleaning and recovery under representative conditions.
Its design work uses the Safe and Sustainable by Design approach, which considers potential risks and environmental, social and economic effects while products are being developed. That is broader than choosing a polymer because it is recyclable. The team intends to examine how material composition, manufacturing, use and recovery work together, including the trade-offs that may emerge when a pack is made durable enough for repeated trips.
Repeated use places different demands on a container than a single filling. Packaging must tolerate the intended handling cycle, cleaning agents, temperature changes and abrasion without losing mechanical integrity or contaminating its contents. In a food application, closure performance and hygienic cleaning would have to be validated as part of the complete operation, not inferred simply from the strength of the unused material.
The environmental comparison also turns on what happens between uses. A more robust pack may require more polymer at manufacture but reduce material consumption per filling if it completes enough safe return cycles. Losses, damage, wash water, cleaning energy and reverse transport can erode that benefit. Representative data on return rates and service life will therefore be necessary before VERSO can support quantified claims about a particular reusable format.
ITC Packaging brings knowledge of polymer conversion and pack design, while RECICLAMÁS contributes experience in collecting and processing material after use. Those roles give the project a route to examine both production and recovery constraints. AIMPLAS has not named a food manufacturer conducting full commercial trials or specified an industrial launch date. The next milestones are design and pilot validation, not an immediate rollout across food manufacturing sites.
A digital product passport could give participants a controlled way to retrieve details about a pack’s material composition, approved use and handling history. In a reuse system, an identifier might link a container or batch to information needed by fillers, collectors, cleaning operators and recyclers. VERSO has not specified a final data model, identifier technology or fully integrated partner network, so those functions remain design questions for the pilot rather than proven capabilities.
Within a return system, some information originates at the converter and other records arise at filling, collection and cleaning points. Maintaining a useful digital history would require those parties to preserve the relationship between the packaging item and its records as the pack moves through the system. Tracking a format or batch is not equivalent to identifying every physical container, so the level of traceability must be matched to the intended use.
The usefulness of any passport depends on who can amend its records and when. A converter might register a resin specification, a filling site record an inspection outcome and a wash operator record a completed cleaning cycle; damaged packs would need to be withdrawn rather than carried forward with obsolete service data. Defined permissions and a consistent connection between identifiers and physical packs are therefore essential to evaluating whether the pilot can support operational decisions.
Alongside pilot testing, VERSO is intended to deliver guidance for packaging design and management across the product lifecycle, with waste prevention a stated priority. Its assessments may help establish when reuse offers an advantage over single-use packaging and when the additional collection or cleaning operation outweighs the material saved. Such conclusions will depend on measured conditions rather than one universal outcome for plastic packaging.
EU packaging policy is increasing demand for better information about material use and recovery, but a proposed research passport is not itself a statutory requirement for every plastic food container. VERSO is testing possible applications of the technology within a particular research programme. The eventual systems will need to be considered against the legal duties, data standards and handling practices relevant to each packaging format.
VERSO is expected to deliver reuse concepts, Safe and Sustainable by Design assessments, lifecycle guidance and a pilot passport implementation. The project’s manufacturing tests must then establish how packs behave over repeated filling, collection, washing and inspection cycles, while the data trials must show whether records remain accurate as packaging changes hands. Neither outcome can be inferred from an initial pack design or a working digital identifier alone.
